That this House has considered Whistleblowing Awareness Week.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I am pleased to be here today to consider Whistleblowing Awareness Week. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing, I would like to recognise the work of our secretariat, WhistleblowersUK, and other partners and supporters in bringing together a programme of events to mark the UK’s first Whistle- blowing Awareness Week.
What is Whistleblowing Awareness Week? In short, it is a celebration of the people and organisations who work hard to do the right thing and shine a light on abuse, corruption, fraud, patient safety concerns and other wrongdoing that would otherwise continue to go unchecked. It is a chance to use the past to shape the future, and to acknowledge what works and what needs to change. It is an opportunity to demonstrate how reforming existing legislation with a new whistleblowing law would put the public interest first and ensure that UK standards are global standards.
We need standards that protect whistleblowers by empowering people to speak up and normalising doing so, investigating concerns, stopping wrongdoing and saving money. We need to have penalties—this must have teeth—that incentivise organisations to do the right thing, and education and access to help and support people and organisations.
Why do we need to raise awareness? Whistleblowers are often described as the canary in the coal mine. What an analogy that is; we all know that the canary suffers in order to let people know that there is a problem. Whistleblowers are ordinary people who see something that is wrong and speak up to stop it, with an expectation that those who have the authority to do something will put things right. It is a fair expectation, but, sadly, it is often far from the reality.
Very often, others in an organisation are also aware of the wrongdoing, but only one person has the courage to speak out and to keep speaking out—the person who will not be fobbed off. This is the person with integrity, who believes in policy and procedures, who believes that the organisation they work for wants to know, and who believes that it will act to stop wrongdoing and protect others from abuse or harm.
I hope to speak in the debate later, so I will keep my intervention short. Does my hon. Friend feel that we need some sort of cultural shift and cultural change that creates a safer space, with the attitude that whistleblowing is not bad, but can actually help an organisation, society and individuals?
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know that when people do not speak out, it is because of the culture. We have seen that this week with the report on the Metropolitan police, which I will go on to consider later. She is entirely right that the culture in organisations needs to be changed. I believe that that culture change needs to be led by a change in our legislation.
Name an industry or a sector, and I can name a scandal brought to light by whistleblowers, who have been stifled, ignored or gaslit rather than listened to, and who have then been bullied and harassed out of their jobs. People who see that happening think twice about blowing the whistle. Unfortunately, as my right hon. Friend has rightly said, all too often people who could and should speak out fear the culture in an organisation and are silenced by it, with devastating results.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, and we are listening with great interest. I congratulate her on securing this debate and on all her campaigning work on whistleblowing over the past few years, for which we are really grateful. Regrettably, I am unable to stay and make a speech, although I would have liked to do so. I apologise; I am on the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill Committee at 2 o’clock, but I shall read the rest of her speech and the other contributions with great interest.
Does my hon. Friend agree that we all have a duty to encourage individuals to come forward to highlight such issues and to be whistleblowers when they see something wrong? The awareness week will help us get that publicity.
My right hon. Friend has got right to the heart of this matter. If people do not know that they can come forward, or if they are in an organisation with a culture of fear and cover-up, they will not. Whistleblowing Awareness Week is about ensuring that people know what they can do, and about making organisations aware that they need to change. I am pushing for changes to legislation, as the Minister knows from our conversations —it is great to have him here today. My right hon. Friend is entirely right; it is about the culture in organisations.
The publication this week of Baroness Casey’s report into the Metropolitan police lays bare the tragic consequences of a culture of fear and cover-up, but if it were not this report, there would be another story in the headlines this week exposed by a whistleblower—or worse.
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point. The Casey review highlights a very specific example that shows why this debate is so important. Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, says he believes that he cannot sack officers who are either convicted of or under investigation for criminal offences. Why would whistleblowers come forward if there is no positive consequence to their actions?
That is at the heart of the problem. If people see that nothing is going to happen, why would they come forward? If they see that somebody is going to be bullied out of their job, why would they come forward? If they see that complaints or information about wrongdoing that they take to their senior leadership will not be acted on, why would they come forward? That is exactly at the heart of the problem.
We need to consider not just the impact of whistleblowers coming forward, making a complaint and letting people know what is going on, but also the impact of not doing that. We need to consider the impact when there is somebody in the police force who is known to indulge, or suspected of indulging, in bad or criminal behaviour, but nothing is done, nobody speaks out and the leadership does not act.
For this Whistleblowing Awareness Week, participants at a series of events in Westminster have heard from a wide range of whistleblowing experts from across the globe—legal, financial and human resources professionals, and those who have turned their lived, first-hand experience into action and passion for change. On Tuesday morning, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) chaired a roundtable on whistleblowing in the healthcare sector. I hope she will speak about that later. We heard from a range of experts, including the national guardian for freedom to speak up in the NHS, Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark. That role came out of the recommendations of the 2015 “Freedom to Speak Up” report by Sir Robert Francis KC, which found that NHS culture did not always encourage staff to speak up or facilitate their doing so. That failure had a direct and negative impact on patients and staff.
Time and again, we have seen the impact of that failure in health trusts across the country: people have been impacted by scandals and lives have been lost in tragic circumstances. The national guardian is tasked with leading the change in NHS culture—look, it must change. Her most recent report includes many positive voices, which is good, but it also highlights that 58.3% of freedom to speak up guardians believe that barriers to speaking up include the concern that nothing will be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) said. Alarmingly, 69% believe that a fear of retaliation or suffering as a result of speaking out is a deterrent. Clearly, there is more to be done to break down these barriers.
My hon. Friend makes it clear that whistleblowing can affect anyone, no matter what organisation they are attached to. Does she agree that that is why we need some changes to the legislative framework to ensure this much-needed change happens? Cultural change alone will not do it; it needs a nudge from Government.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in making that point. In the context of employment law, the existing legislation relates only to people in an employer-employee relationship. As I was going on to say, there is evidence that an office of the whistleblower would incentivise disclosures. People would have a safe space in which to speak, and currently they do not have that across every sector and in every way.
My hon. Friend makes the good point that the existing legislation covers only people who are employed by organisations, but it was evident on Tuesday that sometimes employees do not feel able to bring forward their concerns. In the NHS, patients or their families end up having to raise the concerns, and they are not covered by the legislation.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which gets to the heart of the matter. Our existing law only looks at whether there is an employer-employee relationship, and when there is a relationship breakdown and the person is forced out of their job or leaves it—whether or not that is because of constructive dismissal—they will end up in an employment tribunal arguing the case for their job and their livelihood. The issue that she raises is not touched on at all. Family members of patients, or those who have come across harm and wrongdoing in a different way, have no cover at all. Across the piece, whistleblowers do not get the protection they need, and I would like that to be changed.
To put into perspective where we are now, in 2020 the International Bar Association measured countries with whistleblowing legislation against a list of 20 best practices. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) knows, the existing legislation was introduced in 1998 by her predecessor, so the provisions have been in our law for some time and were ground- breaking at the time. The UK meets only five of the 20 best practice measures. Meanwhile, the United States, whose Office of the Whistleblower sits in the Securities and Exchange Commission, met 16 of the measures. That office received 12,300 disclosures in 2022, which was nearly double the 2020 figure. Ministers have promised a review of the existing whistleblowing framework, and that is welcome.
Will my hon. Friend comment on this matter in respect of how the legislation is not working? Originally, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 did not apply to police officers. However, whistleblowing provisions and protections came in through the Police Reform Act 2002, and they received whistleblowing protection from 1 April 2004. We have legislation in place that states police officers have whistleblowing protection. The situation has actually got worse, and that clearly shows that the legislation needs reforming immediately.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that; we have seen it across various police forces. We are now further examining how the cultures are working, and that need for reform is there. It shows that the best intentions to bring in reforms do not always lead to the protections that we want people to have.
I welcome the review. However, as part of it, I ask the Minister and the Department to look at where this policy area falls and which Department should take responsibility. We have spoken already today about the NHS, policing, and different sectors and organisations. Although I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) is now the Minister responsible, given his extensive experience and his support for whistleblowers and legislative change, I hope that he and the Government will look at the issue in a different way. The existing law has constraints because it relates to only employment and business. Perhaps now is the time to look at the issue more holistically, because it crosses so many Departments.
As I have already set out, the issue cuts across industries and sectors. Importantly, anyone—not just an employee—can be a whistleblower. However, our laws have told us to look at it from only an employer-employee perspective. When it was introduced 25 years ago, the Public Interest Disclosure Act was heralded as world leading, with protections for whistleblowers at employment tribunals. However, as I just said to my hon. Friend, just 4% of employment cases are successful at tribunal. That further brings PIDA’s efficacy into question.
We are all familiar with gov.uk; it is where we get all our information. The gov.uk page on whistleblowing says:
“You’re a whistleblower if you’re a worker and you report certain types of wrongdoing. This will usually be something you’ve seen at work - though not always.
The wrongdoing you disclose must be in the public interest. This means it must affect others, for example the general public.”
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I have known my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) for a long time; there are good MPs and there are great MPs, and she is a great MP. I want to amplify the time, effort and courage that she has shown on this particular issue, because she has done some very important work and continues to do it to this day.
I am a member of the Home Affairs and Justice Committees, so I will talk about whistleblowing in that context. It is wonderful to see the Minister in his place. Before he took up his ministerial position, he did a lot of work in this House on economic crime, and he knows the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle. The Casey review has highlighted and amplified the importance of whistleblowers. Baroness Casey appeared before the Home Affairs Committee yesterday and outlined a whole set of horrific allegations and incidents that have happened in the Metropolitan police over a number of years. It is simply not good enough to say, “Yes, those were horrific. What can we do about that?” In my view, one of the reasons why the system was unable to deal with some of the problems we have seen in police forces throughout the country is that although there are some protections—I read out the Police Reform Act 2002 earlier—they are not good enough to encourage and give people the protection to speak out about the abominable acts they see around them.
In the Metropolitan police, officers were witnessing criminal behaviour, but they did not have the protection to be able to speak out about it. It is quite extraordinary when we think about it. This week—I think this was a recent statement, but this must put it into perspective— Sir Mark Rowley said:
“So I’ve got officers who we determined shouldn’t be police officers and yet I have to keep them. It sounds bizarre—I’m the commissioner, yet I can’t decide who my own workforce is.”
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and to participate in this debate during Whistleblowing Awareness Week 2023. Let us hope it is the first of many, but let us also hope that we do not need it for many years to come.
I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) on securing today’s debate, and I thank her for her work in bringing this important issue to the forefront of public debate, culminating in the inaugural Whistleblowing Awareness Week. I was delighted to accept an invitation from her to chair the roundtable earlier this week, where we held a productive discussion about the challenges that whistleblowers face in our NHS.
I will use my time today to highlight the importance of whistleblowing and add my name to the growing list of parliamentarians calling on the Government to introduce fresh legislation to protect those brave enough to expose wrongdoing where it is in the public interest.
It is worth reiterating for the benefit of those watching our proceedings, including my constituents, exactly what defines a whistleblower. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle has already quoted what is on the gov.uk website, but I do not think it does any harm to repeat it and repeat it. It defines a whistleblower as a person who will
“report certain types of wrongdoing. This will usually be something you’ve seen at work—though not always.
The wrongdoing you disclose must be in the public interest. This means it must affect others, for example the general public.”
It goes on to reassure readers that
“As a whistleblower you’re protected by law—you should not be treated unfairly or lose your job because you ‘blow the whistle’.
You can raise your concern at any time about an incident that happened in the past, is happening now, or you believe will happen in the near future.”
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Patient safety depends on the success of a speaking-out culture, and that should sit alongside a learning culture where mistakes are not covered up for fear of blame. Doctors, nurses and other staff in healthcare settings have lives in their hands and they must feel comfortable, confident and able to report errors and mistakes.
It is often the whistleblowers themselves who give the most powerful testimony. Dr Chris Day is not only a whistleblower—he raised serious patient safety concerns while working as a junior doctor in an intensive care unit—but a change maker who exposed a gap in whistleblowing law that was subsequently reformed. After having blown the whistle on the understaffing that he witnessed, there was another battle on his hands: who can be held to account under existing legislation? As a junior doctor, his training and career were in the hands of Health Education England, who argued that as it did not directly employ Dr Day, the law did not apply to it. He challenged that, and the court found that junior doctors did come under the extended definition of worker. It also found that a worker could have two employers under whistleblowing legislation. Although the issues that he raised as a whistleblower have not been resolved, Dr Day’s actions have resulted in a change to the law.
During our roundtable on Wednesday this week, exploring the new approach to whistleblowing, we heard from Jonathan Taylor, who exposed bribery in the oil and gas industry. Although his disclosures resulted in SBM, a Dutch multinational, paying out more than $800 million in fines and related payments, his whistleblowing also put a stop to an economic crime that had run to hundreds of millions. A statistic that is shared many times in Parliament, including by me, is that 43% of economic crime is detected and exposed through whistleblowers. The Minister has previously said he believes that about 100% of economic crime detection could be attributed to whistleblowing. So, if we want to know where economic crime is being committed, we need to encourage whistle- blowers and others to speak out.
However, speaking up came at a huge personal and professional cost to Mr Taylor. Not only did he spend a year under house arrest in Croatia, but he lost his career. We cannot overestimate the mental and emotional toll that whistleblowing has on people, and he is not alone in his experience. It is no wonder, after having heard the detriment suffered by so many whistleblowers, that people are averse to speaking up.
We also had the pleasure of welcoming Zelda Perkins, who, in breaking her non-disclosure agreement, shone a light on sexual abuse in Hollywood and helped to expose a top film executive who would later be prosecuted for sexual assault and rape. She went on to co-found the Can’t Buy My Silence campaign, which seeks to make NDAs unenforceable except in the case of preventing the sharing of confidential business information and trade secrets, which was their original purpose. The campaign’s efforts contributed to the Department for Education’s introduction of its pledge to end the use of NDAs in universities. That is progress, but we need to go further.
NDAs are often used not just to settle employment disputes, but to silence people. Fraud, corruption, incompetence, environmental damage, abuse, avoidable deaths and cover-ups are silently buried through the use of those agreements. Instead, I would like to bury the use of NDAs for that purpose. We have a situation where some people want to speak up but are bound by such legal agreements, and we have others who could speak but fear reprisals and repercussions. Either way, wrongdoing goes unchallenged. So now what?
Baroness Casey’s Met police review highlights systemic and chronic problems that can arise across any organisation where there is a culture of fear and cover-up. We have a police force riddled with misogyny, racism and homophobia, with inadequate management structures, a lack of leadership and a culture of fear. She describes an organisation where:
“The culture of not speaking up has become so ingrained that even when senior officers actively seek candid views, there is a reluctance to speak up.”
Whistleblowers must have trust and confidence in internal processes, but whistleblowers often come from outside these organisations. I remain concerned that our lack of an inclusive and effective whistleblowing law will continue to hinder progress.
Colleagues may know that last year I brought forward a private Member’s Bill that would reform our whistleblowing legislation. Although it fell because of lack of time, I remain determined to see changes to how we support, encourage and protect the brave people who are prepared to speak out and report wrongdoing. The Bill proposed to create an office of the whistleblower, which would be responsible for setting, monitoring and enforcing standards in the management of whistleblowing cases. The office would provide advice services and a clear avenue for disclosure, and it would direct investigations and handle redress for whistleblowers. Importantly, it would support anyone blowing the whistle.
By my interpretation, that means the Government consider only a limited part of the population to be whistleblowers.
I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Minister attended the launch of Whistleblowing Awareness Week on Monday. I am grateful for his comments and support. He has wide-ranging and in-depth knowledge in this area; I like to think that is partly due to his time as co-chair of the APPG on whistleblowing. I was interested to hear his comments on his business experience and the importance of customer complaints. However, if a customer witnesses wrongdoing in a business or organisation, they are not covered by PIDA. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash pointed out, a family member of an employee is not covered. Volunteers and contractors are not covered either.
Despite concerns expressed by some, this is not about stripping back employment rights. It is about extending those rights and protections to the wider population. It is about protecting victims of crime who may have evidence of wrongdoing within the police, protecting lawyers and accountants who have uncovered evidence of fraud, and protecting those associated with economic crime who may wish to inform law enforcement. Whistleblowing is more than an employment issue. It is a business issue, a safety issue and an issue for Government. I question whether its future belongs in employment law at all.
During Whistleblowing Awareness Week, we heard from some of those who have spoken out about their journey to expose the truth. Our discussions highlighted the urgent need for the Government to introduce new legislation that defines whistleblowing and puts in place meaningful measures to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. It is interesting that our existing legislation does not mention the word “whistleblower” at all.
For those in doubt about the urgency for reform, I hope I have made some of the moral arguments. Let us get to finance. Whistleblowers are acknowledged as the single most effective means of addressing fraud and corruption—not accountants, lawyers or anybody else, but whistleblowers. It is estimated that fraud and corruption costs the UK over £190 billion a year. To put that into perspective, that is more than the entire NHS budget. We cannot continue in this way.
The proposals backed by the APPG on whistleblowing and in the Bill that I brought forward last year will improve the rights of workers, give new rights to everyone, save lives and put an end to the costly and wasteful practice of cover up.
Whistleblowing Awareness Week was brought forward and launched to introduce and mobilise public opinion, influence legislators, celebrate those courageous whistle- blowers who have already given so much to society and seek to bring about a better world in which ordinary people will no longer have to have extraordinary courage to speak up. It is my hope that the conversations we have had this week will continue to move the dial towards legislative change, and I am grateful to have the time in this debate to be able to raise awareness of Whistleblowing Awareness Week.
A witness to a criminal act might want to be a whistleblower, but why would they threaten their career progression or risk the breakdown of relationships with work colleagues if they knew there would be no consequences?
The situation is worse than that. In Greater Manchester police, there was a lady named Maggie Oliver, who I think all of us in the room know; my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle has done a lot of work with her. Maggie was involved for 15 years in the investigation of serious sexual offending in the Greater Manchester area. She had to resign from her job for stating—I will just say it as it is—that rapes were being carried out on teenagers in the Rochdale area and the police were refusing to do anything about it. Within the internal procedures and processes of the police force, she could not even have that matter dealt with. This is a matter of fact; this is not made up.
Maggie had to take the brave decision to leave a career that she loved after 15 years to state the obvious and honest facts of what was happening within the police. What has happened? She has been incredibly brave —she has set up the Maggie Oliver Foundation—but Greater Manchester police continued to say, “No, that’s not true”—they covered the whole thing up and made it incredibly difficult.
Both myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle have had various officers from Greater Manchester police come to us stating the most appalling things, but they are concerned that there is no protection because, even though there is some in PIDA and the other legislation, the actual culture in these organisations means that they will be hounded out of their jobs. In 2019, in Greater Manchester police, it was quite obvious to a number of us that the new, £27 million integrated operational policing system computer was falling apart. No police officer publicly criticised that. No police officer was able to go out and say, “This is a disaster.” But they came to various elected representatives and the local paper, the Manchester Evening News, to say that, as a result of what was happening, police and public safety was at risk. The chief constable of Greater Manchester police at the time said it was not true, and that everything was fine—but it was true.
Even with fundamental issues of public safety, when people are being brutalised in the most appalling manner, people in our police forces are not confident that they will have sufficient protections to enable them to protect the public. I cannot find the words to describe how appalling that is. There are things in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 that are still applicable. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle said that the definition meant that the relevant person had to be an employee. The qualifying disclosures for which someone is covered and given protection are:
“a criminal offence has been committed…a person has failed, is failing or is likely to fail to comply with any legal obligation…a miscarriage of justice has occurred…the health or safety of any individual has been, is being or is likely to be endangered…the environment has been, is being or is likely to be damaged”.
That is a very broad description of what is in the public interest.
There are warm words on the statute book, but they do not work. They should apply outside of just employees, but even if we look at them on their own terms, they do not work. The evidence says they do not work. I suspect the Minister agrees with me, and feels that we have to find a different way to deal with such matters. We asked Baroness Casey how long it would be until we could assess the reform needed at the Metropolitan police; she answered that it would be at least two years. Who protects the public in those two years? We have had disasters in the Met for years and years. Whistleblowers are the protection for the public, and they will not come forward because the system does not protect them.
I argue strongly that we are in a very bad situation. I was going to say that we should treasure whistleblowers— I think that is the correct word. I cannot think of a circumstance where a whistleblower would take that brave step if it was not in the public interest and for a public good. We need a different way, and the private Member’s Bill put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle offers one. I say bluntly to the Minister that if we do not have those protections, we will have another report from another eminent person about another police force saying that appalling things have been happening, but officers have not had sufficient protection from internal management and procedures to come forward and do what is right. That needs to be changed. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I support every single word she said.
However, although in principle individuals are protected under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, we know that in practice whistleblowers remain vulnerable to retaliation for their actions, due in part to the current inadequacies of existing legislation.
Over many decades, thanks to the courageous efforts of whistleblowers, serious cases of wrongdoing, including corruption and malpractice, have been brought to the attention of the public. Members may recall the notable case of Katharine Gun, a GCHQ employee who, in 2003, leaked top secret information to The Observer newspaper in an attempt to prevent the Iraq war. Although the leaking of this information did not ultimately stop the war, it put an end to the prospects of a second UN resolution authorising the invasion and prompted worldwide condemnation of the actions of the US intelligence community. If Members have not already done so, I greatly encourage them to watch the film “Official Secrets”, which documents Ms Gun’s remarkable whistle- blowing story.
Many of us will also remember the repeated instances of physical and psychological abuse perpetrated by staff at Winterbourne View. These horrific crimes were only exposed when the BBC’s “Panorama” programme took up the investigations after previous allegations made by a senior nurse at the hospital were dismissed by the Care Quality Commission. The subsequent serious case review into Winterbourne View revealed hundreds of previous incidents at the hospital and warnings that were missed. This whistleblowing not only led to the criminal conviction of 11 individuals, six of whom were subsequently jailed, but to the closure of the hospital and—importantly—it put an end to the shocking abuse at that site of some of the most vulnerable people in society. In both the cases that I have cited so far, the whistleblowers believed that they had a moral duty to expose wrongdoing in the institutions that they worked in and their stories serve to highlight how whistleblowing can bring about fundamental and positive change.
It was made evident at an NHS roundtable earlier this week, which I had the honour of chairing, that although whistleblowers are protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, many individual whistleblowers commonly face an uphill battle to be heard in the first place, and they can then encounter discrimination from colleagues and employers once allegations are made. We heard a very moving story from a nurse about the impact that her actions had had. She not only lost her job but her whole family were impacted. Indeed, the overall impact was so severe that she seriously considered taking her own life. We cannot let that happen to anybody who is trying to make things better for other people.
Professor Emmanouil Nikolousis was previously a clinical director at University Hospitals Birmingham, where he led a review into potential malpractice. At the roundtable, he detailed how he was bullied out of his post by senior NHS managers in 2020. This was because the findings of his report included details of how repeated breakdowns in communication between doctors at the trust had led to some patients dying without receiving appropriate care. Professor Nikolousis is now calling for a full inquiry into the trust, with his own story demonstrating why more needs to be done to protect whistleblowers.
However, the positive news is that increasingly organisations such as the NHS are moving to implement policies that help and support their employees to speak out, although I know that more still needs to be done. The freedom to speak up policy aims to ensure that everyone working within the NHS feels sufficiently safe and confident to speak up, as well as encouraging leaders within the organisation to take the opportunity to learn from those who speak up and improve matters.
These organic policies, such as the freedom to speak up, should, in combination with the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, give employees confidence that they will be treated fairly and fully supported when they raise concerns about malpractice. It has been quite evident today and throughout the week that the measures we have are not working, and we need to go further. When it comes to legislative and regulatory protections for whistleblowers, the UK currently lags far behind many other countries, including those in the EU, in imposing new and severe penalties on companies that either obstruct whistleblowers or fail to keep their identity confidential, as we have already heard. It is clear, not least from the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle and by Baroness Kramer, that both Houses of Parliament want to do more and that there is an appetite to protect whistleblowers.
I look forward to the Minister’s comments at the end of the debate, and I urge the Government to introduce the necessary legislation to protect whistleblowers further and ensure that the types of serious cases that we have heard about today and throughout the week continue to be exposed in the public interest.