Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what external oversight mechanisms are in place to ensure that publicly owned broadcasters investigate whistleblowing concerns independently of senior management.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Our public service broadcasters are operationally independent of Government and so probationary periods rightfully remain a matter for them.
Employees of public service broadcasters, like most employees in Great Britain, who blow the whistle on certain types of wrongdoing are protected from retaliatory unfair dismissal and detriment under the Employment Rights Act 1996 if legislative conditions are met. This is a day one right, meaning employees do not need to satisfy any qualifying period of service to seek remedies in employment tribunals.
Employees of publicly owned broadcasters will be protected if they blow the whistle to Ofcom, the independent media regulator, if certain conditions in the legislation are met. Ofcom is a ‘prescribed person’ under the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Person Order) 2014. The Government is also exploring the addition of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) to this list and the Secretary of State continues to call on the television sector and wider creative industries to support the work of CIISA to improve standards of behaviour across industry.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of trends in the use of extension of probationary periods in publicly owned broadcasters to detriment whistleblowing employees.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Our public service broadcasters are operationally independent of Government and so probationary periods rightfully remain a matter for them.
Employees of public service broadcasters, like most employees in Great Britain, who blow the whistle on certain types of wrongdoing are protected from retaliatory unfair dismissal and detriment under the Employment Rights Act 1996 if legislative conditions are met. This is a day one right, meaning employees do not need to satisfy any qualifying period of service to seek remedies in employment tribunals.
Employees of publicly owned broadcasters will be protected if they blow the whistle to Ofcom, the independent media regulator, if certain conditions in the legislation are met. Ofcom is a ‘prescribed person’ under the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Person Order) 2014. The Government is also exploring the addition of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) to this list and the Secretary of State continues to call on the television sector and wider creative industries to support the work of CIISA to improve standards of behaviour across industry.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to correspondence from the hon. Member for Salford of 30 October 2025 on deaths in custody and prison management at HMP Forest Bank, reference number MC128673.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Department apologises for the delay in responding on this occasion and we regret that this falls short of expected standards. We are prioritising this and a response will be issued within the coming week.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of whistleblowing protections for employees of publicly owned broadcasters under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Our public service broadcasters, publicly owned or otherwise, rightfully remain independent of Government, but their employees like most in Great Britain are protected under the whistleblowing framework in the Employment Rights Act 1996 (as amended by the Public Interest and Disclosure Act 1998). This protects employees from detriment and dismissal if they blow the whistle on wrongdoing and certain conditions in the legislation are met.
More broadly, the Government acknowledges concerns that the UK whistleblowing framework may not be operating as effectively as it should be and recently announced, through the Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025, that it will explore opportunities to reform that framework.