Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Turner—and, if he had been here, no doubt my noble friend Lord Wedderburn—for supporting my revised amendment. I am grateful, too, for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, on behalf of the Conservative Opposition, and of the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, for the Liberal Democrats. Despite that widespread support from all sides, the response of my noble friend Lord Jones of Birmingham was extremely disappointing and to some extent rather astonishing. He knows, as I do, that there are published all sorts of allegations about individuals and firms, in terms of their being charged with fraud or accused of something, which are later disposed of in a negative way, with it all seeming in hindsight rather unfair that the allegations were made public. But that is part of the price we pay for open justice. It is astonishing that the noble Lord should say, by the pure chance that wrongful dismissal cases are brought in employment tribunals rather than in the ordinary High Court, that the civil procedure rules that I wanted to transplant into the employment tribunal field should not be allowed. I remind the Minister that the purpose of the Public Interest Disclosure Act was not just to give a private remedy to a private individual who was wrongfully dismissed for blowing the whistle on some wrongdoing, or alleged wrongdoing, at his place of work; it was designed to support the public interest, to deter wrongdoing in future and to ensure that wrongdoing was not hidden from public sight. The DTI—it was long before, I accept, my noble friend’s time at the new department—introduced regulations to stop any publicity except in the circumstance of a final tribunal determination. That seemed to go completely against the purpose of the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which was to bring things out, preferably via the employer or a regulator rather than via the press, to ensure that the employer would do something about it. Unfortunately, if things can be hushed up and a settlement made without any public understanding of what is going on, then the wrongdoing may continue; there is far less of a deterrent against wrongdoing being attacked, criticised and dealt with. Unfortunately the employer may not feel a need, because sometimes it is easier to shoot the messenger—the whistleblower—than to deal with those initiating the wrongdoing in the first place. I have to say to my noble friend the Minister—he will forgive me, I hope, for putting it strongly; we have known one another for many years—that I am very disappointed with his answer. I shall have to discuss with my advisers what to do before Third Reading. Of course I beg leave to withdraw my amendment, but I do so with great reluctance. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.