Lord Cromwell (CB)

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, which is unusual. I will not list them all in the interest of avoiding tedium. Over the years, I have met and listened to harrowing tales from many whistleblowers. Our current legal provisions to protect them and to ensure action on what they reveal are simply inadequate, as the eloquent speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, highlighted—and as, I am sure, will other speeches that follow. It is important to remember that whistleblowers often start as people trying to help, to right a wrong and to improve the organisation they work for, but they are almost always marginalised, or worse, and the issues raised are ignored or not addressed. Crucial for me among these amendments, which I strongly support, are Amendments 42 and 52, from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, which would require organisations to act on what whistleblowers uncover; Amendment 54, from the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, which seeks a duty to investigate what is revealed; and Amendment 119, which is also from the noble Lord, Lord Wills—I am sure he will speak soon—which seeks a process of refreshing the protections. If these can be embodied in the Bill then we can start to turn the tide on the difficulties that whistleblowers face. Finally, I turn briefly to Amendments 110 to 112, concerning the proposed office of the whistleblower, which I also support and for which a strong case has just been made. I will comment only on two points: first, the sheer scale of the task that this office would have to take on, given the foregoing comments that I made; and secondly, linked to it, the commensurate need for adequate resourcing of that office. I repeat that I support all the amendments in that group. I will not go through them one by one, but I hope that the Minister, in responding, will give very serious consideration not only to the need but to the practical solutions that they offer.