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Mr. Robathan: The hon. Gentleman is making some sensible points. I am not trying to undermine them, but he has raised as an example of how useful the Bill will be the case of Nick Leeson's hidden account 88888 and Barings' downfall. In what way would the Bill have protected Barings? His second example, in which I am particularly interested, was European fraud. Would the Bill have protected Mr. Connolly, who was sacked for the European Commission for speaking out in a way that he believed was honest and true?
Mr. Fisher: It is impossible to say with any certainty that the Bill would have resolved those cases, but in those two cases and countless others, people who knew what was happening thought, "I ought to say something about this, but I am frightened to do so, because I might not keep my job and could put other people at risk."
Uncertainty, fear and the lack of legal protection is inhibiting. Whether it is Barclays or the abuse of European Union agricultural subsidies, there are people who know what is going on. Some of them will never blow the whistle on malpractices, but there must be good people out there who would like to blow the whistle but are frightened to do so. My hon. Friend's Bill will address and attack that element of fear.
My hon. Friend has drawn his Bill well, and he is almost certainly right about the question of profit. Similar legislation and practice in other countries, and some practices in this country--particularly in respect of crime--allow for reward. The question whether people should be allowed to benefit is difficult to answer.
In the United States, substantial rewards are offered for whistleblowing in customs and excise matters. The USA authorities feel that they would be unable to tackle the scale of customs and excise fraud without being able to offer fiscal incentives. My hon. Friend has correctly erred on the side of caution and has taken a simple, no-profit approach. He understands also that whistleblowing is a last resort, which is most proper.
The European Union and other countries are moving in the direction of my hon. Friend's proposed measure. Spain and Portugal recently introduced similar legislation, and in the Republic of Ireland the Dail is considering doing the same. The Netherlands and Denmark are considering similar legislation. Recent important court decisions in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands recognised for the first time that it is in the public interest to protect whistleblowers. Two relevant European Union directives issued recently, on drug trafficking and health and safety, place a duty on people to report malpractice. There is recognition throughout the western world that the issue must be addressed now.
My hon. Friend's Bill is not a panacea. It cannot solve the cultural problems, but it will provide a framework. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield(Mr. McCartney) will support the Bill when he speaks from the Front Bench and will give an undertaking that the freedom of information Act that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has time and again said a Labour Government will introduce--which I hope and expect will be based on the right-to-know Bill that I introduced some years ago--will incorporate the Bill's important provisions, because they are an essential element of a comprehensive freedom of information Act.
Open government laws are not enough in themselves--what matters is how they are implemented. Those of us who have studied the operation of freedom of information legislation in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere know that the framework in law that my hon. Friend seeks to introduce is only a starter for 10. Of great importance is the way in which the Government promote that law and encourage the public, courts and institutions to use it. The spirit in which such a law is operated, rather than the legal framework, is of central importance.
Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport):
Anyone hearing the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) move the Second Reading of his Bill would have found it difficult to disagree with anything he said. The Bill as presented by the hon. Gentleman would rectify serious problems. He highlighted the capsizing of the Herald of Free Enterprise off Zeebrugge, and the Piper Alpha disaster. One thinks also of the Clapham rail crash, the Ashworth hospital scandle, and cancer misdiagnosis. In those and other cases, it can be argued that it would have been possible for whistleblowers to have prevented those incidents.
The word "whistleblowing" sounds like a healthy, hearty, outdoor thing to do, but whistleblowing offers scope for abuse so great that it gives me cause to worry
about the Bill. The Library's indispensable research paper, which is well up to the Library's normal standard, refers to the "autocratic environment" in BCCI
Many companies, and many Governments, are like that. BCCI happened because of the failure of international banking supervisors to co-ordinate, rather than of an individual.
It is generally accepted that, where a cost is to fall on the Government, no one really cares; where it is to fall on a big company, no one cares outside the company; and where it is to fall on a smaller company, that will be of intense concern to the proprietors of the company or organisation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford(Mr. Duncan Smith) gave the example of a school as one type of organisation that could be helped by the Bill. I am the chairman of a sixth form college in my constituency that is quite a sizeable organisation, as these things go. It has a budget of £4.5 million a year, 250 staff and 1,182 full-time pupils. Well over 75 per cent. of all the college's costs are accounted for by the salaries of teachers and other employees. A comparatively small amount of money is left for administration.
It would be devastating if a member of the staff or someone associated with the college sought to take action under the Bill, by reporting an incident of maladministration that the individual believed had taken place. The legal expense and the cost in staff time would be devastating, even though that organisation is of reasonable size.
As to the kind of person who might be a whistleblower, to take one view--or a sneak, to take another--I am worried about members of the awkward squad. I refer to the person who does not get on well with his fellow employees or with the boss, and who wants to expose something that he thinks is important. Having done so internally, then he might claim that he is being discriminated against if he seeks to pursue the matter further. I am concerned most about the smaller company.
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills):
I intervene with great diffidence, because my hon. Friend and I had a relationship with Lloyd's of London. In fact, my hon. Friend served on the council of Lloyd's. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if some of the malpractices in that organisation had been revealed earlier by employees in the Lloyd's market, the cost to investors, the reputation of Lloyd's and the possible survival of Lloyd's might have been assisted? There is sometimes a positive gain. The burden of cost, on the simple side of the account, is not the final determinant. There are wider considerations of public interest.
Mr. Viggers:
I declare an interest as an ex-member of the council of Lloyd's, and I retain a connection with that organisation as chairman of its pension fund trustees. I am also a member of the Lloyd's investigations committee--the committee that is tasked with investigating matters that are reported through the regulatory board. There is what is informally called at Lloyd's a sneak's charter, whereby people are encouraged to report matters--if necessary, anonymously--so that they may be pursued.
The problem is that less is reported than should be. Lloyd's has much broader provisions than those in the Bill, but they do not work, because those at Lloyd's do not participate fully and do not make reports that would expose the problems.
Mr. Shepherd:
People may be fearful for their jobs.
Mr. Viggers:
It is possible at Lloyd's for someone to report a matter anonymously, so that need not affect his job at all. The provisions at Lloyd's are broader than those in the Bill.
Mr. MacShane:
I am concerned by the number of anonymous letters that I, as a Member of Parliament, get about malpractice. I had one recently about a public agency in Rotherham, containing serious allegations, but signed simply "The Mole". What do I do? It is extremely difficult to pursue the matter. Were the Bill to be law, and were the mole really to believe he had some cause of complaint in the public interest, he would feel protected as a citizen.
It would still be a big decision for him, but the Bill would at least move us away from the world of sneaks, anonymity and people who were fearful of revealing problems because they were frightened of losing their jobs or some other pressure. The Bill would enhance the individual freedom of the citizen.
Mr. Viggers:
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. I shall deal in a moment with those who genuinely believe that they have exposed a genuine wrong. The hon. Gentleman puts one point of view, and I will explain the opposite point of view.
I am concerned about the effect on morale in larger organisations. I am especially concerned about those who have become obsessed with an issue. We all know such people, and they are well known to clergymen, doctors, solicitors and Members of Parliament. Such people turn up in constituency surgeries, absolutely convinced that they have had access to some facts that they think need to be in the public domain.
Their obsession can leave them near to the norm in personality or it can take them well away from the personality norm. Someone who has become obsessed with an issue and who may genuinely believe in it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford said, would be able to pursue that obsession more easily.
"in which no one dared to speak up."
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