Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Margaret Eileen Joyce Wheeler (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will speak also to the rest of the amendments in this group on behalf of my noble friend Lord Wills, who is unfortunately unwell and not able to be here These amendments all aim to increase the protection for whistleblowers. These issues were discussed extensively at both Second Reading and in Committee, so I hope that we will not need to rehearse the arguments again today at length. On my noble friend’s behalf I thank the Minister and his ministerial colleague in the House of Commons, Margot James MP, and their officials for the way in which they have engaged with the issues. They devoted a great deal of time and attention to the dialogue with my noble friend, and he has underlined that they have been fair and open-minded throughout. As a result, he commented that this has been a model of how public policy should be developed in legislation and that it does the Government credit. The importance of whistleblowing in exposing malpractice and wrongdoing and improving the delivery of public services is widely accepted. Whistleblowers have some protections but they need more. These amendments seek to provide extra protection for those working in organisations covered by the Bill Amendments 52 and 72 require the Secretary of State to issue in relation to the organisations covered by the Bill a code of practice on whistleblowing arrangements which can be taken into account by courts and tribunals when the issue of whistleblowing arises. Such a statutory code of conduct sends out to all organisations a powerful signal about the importance that Parliament attaches to providing adequate protection for whistleblowers to help drive necessary cultural change within organisations to encourage whistleblowing. As such, it is a more powerful protection for whistleblowers and acts more effectively in promoting a culture of transparency than the voluntary code of conduct promoted by the Government Amendments 53 and 73 provide improved protections for whistleblowers who are job applicants in the organisations covered by the Bill. As we discussed in Committee, this is a critical gap in protections for whistleblowers as job applicants are not considered workers and so do not receive the protections afforded under the Public Interest Disclosure Act. If an individual is labelled a whistleblower, it can be difficult for them to get work because they can find themselves blacklisted— not through a formal, centralised database but informally. The excellent Public Concern at Work campaign has cited a number of such cases where an informal and insidious blacklisting of former whistleblowers has taken place in the recruitment and selection process The Government have recognised this anomaly and, following the Francis report into the Mid Staffordshire NHS trust, introduced new protections for whistleblowing job applicants, but only for those working in the NHS. There is no logical reason why such protections should be so restricted, and Amendment 53 addresses this anomaly for those working in organisations covered by the Bill As noble Lords will know, my noble friend Lord Wills has moved a similar amendment on several occasions in the past and it has been resisted by Ministers on the grounds that they require more evidence that it is needed—so this time, the amendment recognises those concerns by seeking to give the Secretary of State a power to introduce such protections. This is on the assumption that, if and when such evidence is produced, the Secretary of State will issue the appropriate regulations. There is no provision for what sort of evidence will be required to persuade the Secretary of State to act in this way, but all recent experience in the organisations covered by the Bill suggests that it will be forthcoming The amendment seeks to take advantage of a relatively rare legislative opportunity to ensure that, as soon as it becomes even clearer that these protections are needed, the Government can act rapidly to implement them. Amendment 53B seeks to achieve the same effect as Amendment 53, but restricts its scope to children’s social care in an effort to meet any concerns about the scope of the Bill. I beg to move.