Contribution
My Lords, I apologise for not taking part in the Bill earlier. As the House will know, this is not my usual territory, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham for drawing my attention to the whistleblowing issue in it. I very much support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble Earl, Lord Minto, which would add a whistleblowing function to the Bill and to the role of the commissioner.
Amendment 3 seeks to make it clear that someone who speaks out on the issues covered in the Bill—essentially, welfare issues—can take their concerns directly to the commissioner regardless of the service they are attached to, and will have the status of a whistleblower, with the respect and protections that come with that role, as established under our current whistleblowing law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which include confidentiality. The commissioner will then be empowered to investigate again if the issues meet the criteria set out in the Bill—and investigation, as any survey of whistleblowers will tell you, is more important to those who speak out than even protection.
There is a distinction between someone who makes a complaint and someone who chooses to blow the whistle. A complainant is looking for very specific redress and quite rightly—there is nothing wrong with that; it is entirely appropriate—but a whistleblower, as we know from whistleblowers generally, is someone who has realised, recognised or seen the potential for something going seriously wrong. They are not looking for personal redress; they are raising the issue in order to achieve investigation. The commissioner can then make that decision, but that is a very different process and a very different aspect from making a complaint about an experience that you or a family member directly had. You may end up complaining and whistleblowing, but whistleblowing has to be recognised as a tool which directs investigators.
I spent part of this morning with the director of the Serious Fraud Office, who underscored the fact to an all-party parliamentary group that when you are an investigator, knowing where to investigate requires a flow of information. He said that the biggest help Parliament could give the Serious Fraud Office would be to empower whistleblowers, because that is where he finds the information and the direction that guide the investigation he needs to do. It seems to me that that applies just as much in the armed services—even if it is under the limited welfare umbrella—as it does anywhere else.
I will concede that the current whistleblowing law which frames whistleblower protections, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, is deficient and many of us are seeking to upgrade or replace it. But it is all we have today and at the very least, its protections should extend to the armed services. The Government have responded that they can simply put the protections into their policy document. Why does anybody think a policy document is legal protection? The Government also suggested, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, mentioned, that they could introduce an anonymity clause for the reports the commissioners publish, but I cannot see that anything in this amendment rules that out.
I could suggest further changes within the scope of the Bill to enable a whistleblowing process for the Armed Forces, but I think we have something very powerful in front of us today. The Bill creates something really exceptional and valuable—a truly independent commissioner whose future career does not depend on any of the armed services or on the Civil Service. He or she in that role has the potential to be a real game-changer when it comes to speaking out.
Again, if what we had in place was perfectly adequate, would we have had that report today from BBC Wiltshire of three more members of the armed services coming forward with the most extraordinary and shocking experiences? We have to recognise that what we have in place is not achieving what we want it to. That is why this amendment and the change it proposes is so important.
As we get legislative improvements—in this area and in other areas—for whistleblowing, protections will be more effective. We will avoid not just the scandals we have seen within the services but those in other areas—for example, the Post Office. We have a real chance, then, that wrongdoing can be tackled. If we want to enhance the morale of the armed services, show people that they are genuinely valued and encourage recruitment into the services, we can make it clear that there is a simple channel to a trusted individual—someone people can go to with a whistleblowing issue, not necessarily a personal complaint. There are few things that would do more to encourage people to hold our services in the very high regard that service members deserve than to provide someone with investigatory powers who is aware of the situation and has the detail and background to allow an investigation.