Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will expand the list of prescribed people for whistleblowing to include (a) job applicants, (b) trustees, (c) independent contractors and (d) trade union representatives.

The whistleblowing framework enables workers to seek redress if they are dismissed or suffer detriment because they have made a ‘protected disclosure’. The standard employment law definition of worker has been extended to provide whistleblowing protections to NHS job applicants and other categories of worker such as trainees, agency workers and certain NHS workers. The government has no plans to extend the protections more generally but to qualify for protection, the worker must make their disclosure in accordance with the Employment Rights Act 1996, which can include making it to a ‘prescribed person’. DBT regularly updates the list of prescribed persons.