Employment Bill [HL]

The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, does not do himself proud enough when he introduces this amendment. Ten years ago, when I chaired the National Consumer Council, a very brilliant young lawyer called Guy Dehn, who worked at the council, made this matter a real cause. It became his absolute passion. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, became chairman and has now moved on to being a patron. Therefore, my interest has been very involved with this, certainly from the consumer viewpoint in the 10 years that this body has been in existence. They have been 10 long years; it has been a long road, and it is remarkable that Guy Dehn—brilliant as he is—has stayed at the helm of this young organisation to try, almost single-handedly, to bring about some wonderful changes in this country. Certainly, bringing things out into the light has been very important. I was lucky enough to be on the board of three public companies. In all three of them, I watched whistleblowing at work being introduced and I saw how different companies of different sizes were able to cope with it. It is therefore right that we should speak about it today. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, gave us a summary of a drawn-out process that one can without doubt call obscure. Whether whistleblower claims which are settled before they reach a tribunal should be on the public record has been buried under a morass of regulations and inadequate consultation. What is worse, it appears that the then DTI undertook to hide the regulations and their overall intention from the charity, Public Concern at Work. As the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, pointed out, the ombudsman’s report was damning about the way in which the Government handled the regulations. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government have any intention of revisiting the matter and, this time, adopting an open and transparent approach to the problem. The Government appear to have buried their heads in the sand about the strength of feeling on this matter. I hope that they will be responsible enough to take the proper steps to address the concern so well expressed by one of their own noble friends.