The Employment Rights Bill is continuing its journey through the House of Lords and our proposals to update the whistleblowing framework have formed a key part of the conversation.
May has seen the bill reach Committee Stage in the House of Lords, giving all members of the Lords an opportunity to speak and debate amendments. We’ve worked with a wide range of peers from across all parties to amass support for our proposals to modernise whistleblowing protection.
Former Minister Lord Wills put his name to three amendments. The first is to introduce a Duty to Investigate whistleblowing concerns, creating a requirement on employers to take “reasonable steps” to investigate whistleblowing concerns that are brought to them. As the debate continued late into the evening, Baroness Kramer presented Lord Wills’ amendments to the House:
The second of the amendments is the Extension of Whistleblower Protections, which expands whistleblowing protections to the self-employed, job applicants, trade union negotiators and all those in the workforce who currently do not fit under the current narrow definition of “worker”. Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb outlined how this amendment would reduce potential harm to the public.
And the third amendment lowers the bar for automatic unfair dismissal from the current position of whistleblowing being the main or the principal reason for dismissal, to “one of the reasons”, alongside extending the time limits to Interim Relief for whistleblowing from 3 months to 6 months. Crossbench peer Lord Cromwell pledged his support for all three amendments.
These amendments have received support from across the House of Lords with the former Liberal Democrat Minister Baroness Kramer, Green Peer Jenny Jones, former Conservative Cabinet Minister Nicky Morgan and crossbench Peer Lord Cromwell all speaking in support of them.
Previously the government ministers pushed back against adopting the amendments. However, they have also given us hope by not categorically ruling out adopting the measures over time. We’re looking to take the momentum we’ve gained from proposing these amendments, building upon the growth of support in the Commons, and will ask peers to table further amendments on these issues.
In the Commons, Minister Justin Madders said that he had “begun to consider” adopting these amendments. As such, we hope that in Report Stage the government will accept these proposals and finally update our broken and outdated whistleblowing framework.
However, with so many amendments to scrutinise the House of Lords is likely to take longer than planned to dissect the Bill which could delay it passing into law by anything from a day to a few weeks. While the government want it passed before Parliament’s summer recess, which begins on 22 July, the debates may continue into the autumn.