The government’s flagship Employment Rights Bill, rapidly moving throught the stages of Parliament, offers an opportunity to overhaul how employers and colleagues treat both whistleblowers and the how people raise concerns. We’re delighted to see sexual harassment will be added to the list of wrongdoing that can be raised and protected, and the extensions of time limits for workers to bring an employment tribunal claim go up from 3 months to 6 months. Both changes will benefit whistleblowers.
Welcome as these changes are, they are not ambitious enough to strengthen whistleblowing protection which was a promise the Government made during the election.
The changes will not guarantee a response when whistleblowers raise concerns with their employer – this is a huge issue. Our new research, the Cost of Whistleblowing Failures, published in February 2025 found that across three scandals – Post Office Horizon, Lucy Letby/the Countess of Chester and the collapse of Carillion – whistleblowing failures cost the taxpayer £426m. In each scandal we found whistleblowers either ignored or not dealt with properly by their employer.
This is why we’re delighted that Labour MP Alex Sobel has tabled an amendment that would create a duty on all employers to investigate whistleblowing concerns raised by their staff. This approach has cross-party support from former Ministers including Baroness Hodge of Barking, Alastair Carmichal MP and Sir Robert Buckland as well as group of high-profile whistleblowers including the Yorkshire cricket racism whistleblower Azeem Rafiq. In addition six of the UK’s leading whistleblowing and anti-corruption organisations are supporting the amendment.
We’re also pleased to see the Liberal Democrat Steve Darling MP champion the change we have been advocating to simplify the legal test for automatic unfair dismissal in whistleblowing cases. Too many whistleblowing cases are lost because employers can point to the breakdown of the employment relationship as the main reason for a dismissal, rather than it being caused by the whistleblowing itself.