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Written question asked by Lord Myners (Crossbench) on Wednesday, 22 May 2019, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 6 June 2019. It was answered by Lord Henley (Conservative) on Tuesday, 4 June 2019 on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Industry: Disclosure of Information

Question

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to commission a review of the legislation and regulatory practice governing whistleblowing in regulated industries to investigate (1) the effectiveness of current practices, (2) the adequacy of protections provided to whistleblowers, and (3) the adoption of policies to promote and safeguard whistleblowing.

Answer

Over recent years, the Government has implemented statutory and non-statutory reforms to improve the whistleblowing framework in all sectors. This includes guidance for whistleblowers on how in practice to make disclosures while preserving their employment protections; and guidance for employers including a non-statutory code of practice.

We have fulfilled the commitment to keep the Prescribed Persons list up to date – these are individuals and bodies that a whistleblower can approach in order to make a disclosure. Guidance is in place for Prescribed Persons and we review the list annually.

The most recent reform was a new legislative requirement for most prescribed persons to produce an annual report on whistleblowing disclosures made to them by workers. Relevant prescribed persons were required to publish the first of these reports by the end of September 2018.

Whilst it is right and proper that Government reviews the whistleblowing framework, we believe that it would be premature to do so now. We need to allow the existing changes that we have introduced to embed and provide the necessary evidence of their impact over time that would support a meaningful review.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
HL15931
Session
2017-19
Subjects
Disclosure of information Industry Reviews
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk