Response To APPG Whistle-blowing Debate

To Parliament.

                     Official Statement by Eileen Chubb.

                              BUPA 7 Whistle-blower

Founder and National Director, Compassion in Care and The Whistler

          In response to the Whistle-blowing debate 3/July/2019

                                       Background

The APPG has been set up by Norman Lamb and Stephen Kerr and the appointed secretariat is WBUK.

Please Note when we refer to Lobbying we are referring to paid lobbying i.e. that a payment has been made to someone (Not necessarily an M.P) but someone appointed to a position of power to influence policy.

When members of the public or other organisations contact MPs to put something right, we refer to this as petitioning.

A clear distinction needs to be made between, Petitioning and lobbying because they are completely different things and motivated by completely different agendas. This distinction is currently not being made by parliament itself leading to confusion and a space to allow the worst abuses of the parliamentary system to take place.

These are my concerns regarding WBUK, they are funded by Constantine Cannon and Navex Global and maybe others as they welcome corporate funding. It is a platform for paid lobbying and as such WBUK are seriously compromised by this. Yet they are the appointed secretariat for the APPG on whistle-blowing. This role involves gathering evidence from whistle-blowers and putting their own interpretation on this evidence in the form of publishing a report that will have direct influence on Parliament. Given the well-established concerns many have raised about WBUK and their past actions which include,

.Telling a National Newspaper they cared so much about a particular case they were helping the whistle-blower pro bono whilst they had already tried to obtain costs from the same whistle-blowers tribunal hearing, which the judge questioned the legality of.The costs claim was withdrawn, which should not cancel out the attempted illegality by the way.

. Leaving articles on their website that incorrectly refer to WBUK as a charity when there is no record of them being registered as such.

. Ms Georgina Halford-Hall allowed herself to be described as a whistle-blower in the case of a complaint against a school. The teachers involved not Halford-Hall were the whistle-blowers.

. We have also been contacted by vulnerable whistle-blowers who had contacted WBUK and encountered a complete lack of support and an attitude of, what have they to offer WBUK? and not the other way around.

. There are also concerns about a bias against whistle-blowers who are not involved in the financial sector and that WBUK are cherry picking only those cases that they can use for their own agenda and leaving vulnerable people out in the cold.

.WBUK are on the record as being pro-bounty hunting which lines the pockets of lawyers whilst only protecting what we term “convenient whistleblowing” This US “office for the whistle-blower” is a vehicle to bring bounty hunting into UK whistleblowing law, something the law firm Constantine Cannon has long sought to do.

. Baroness Cramer of the APPG is on the record as saying Halford-Hall founded WBUK, this is untrue. Eileen Chubb and Gavin MacFadyen founded WBUK and we resigned publicly when it became clear the organisation had been hijacked by those only interested in protecting the financial sector and pro bounty hunting. Many other genuine whistle-blowers disgusted at these events also left.

                                   Investigating paid Lobbying.

The media when looking at lobbying is looking at only MPs receiving payments in return for influence, but lobbying for influence can take many forms and it should not be forgotten that MPs appoint secretariats of APPGS and the rules simply saying funding should be declared re the secretariat role but what is not declared is the funding history and agendas of organisations such as WBUK or any organisation receiving corporate income from sectors such as legal firms and the compliance industry both of which are heavily involved in the exploitation of the whistle-blowing law market.

Stephen Kerr MP is clearly a mouthpiece for WBUK, I am unsure if Norman Lamb has been led up the garden path by WBUK or if he is directly involved in the money for influence agenda, time will tell.

I have campaigned for two decades for whistle-blower protection and an acceptable inquiry into the lack of whistle blower protection, accountability: including into the misconduct in public office issues that have affected many whistle-blowers using Employment Tribunals.

I note that yesterday debate cited many cases but not the first PIDA case, the BUPA 7 which involved many in positions of power at the time and direct Independent  factual evidence of the Employment Tribunal system being implicated in Misconduct in Public Office  which any fair inquiry would uphold and which the BUPA 7 brought to the attention of the house repeatedly. The case of the BUPA 7 whistle-blowers was not referred to because it opened up an inconvenient truth that the house chose to ignore, companies like BUPA are protected by the system.

I ask you to note Breaking The Silence Part Three that lists the excessively number of abuse and deaths in BUPA homes compared to similar sized companies since the BUPA 7 case.

In relation to the whistle-blowing compliance industry such as WBUK and the charity, Protect, which changed its name from PCAW presumably because of the fall out from whistle blowers who had been failed by the law that PCAW drafted i.e the useless PIDA, which was always useless but is only now being acknowledged as such. Yet Protect are being invited to draft any future law!

I must ask you to note that if whistle-blowing policies and procedures and the selling of them was ever an effective way to protect whistle-blowers then surely this company most of all with its history, 16 years after the BUPA 7 case hit the headlines: can the following abuse case reported by the Telegraph highlighting a judges conclusions that BUPA WHISTLE-BLOWING POLICY NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE after abuse went unchecked in one of its care homes.

I note the following other points in the debate.

Kelly Tolhurst is still reciting the same useless drivel that I have heard for 20 years from the Department of state that deals with business: which has no business being responsible for whistle-blowing law in the first place. because the interests of business always come first.

This same Department called for evidence in the past, we supplied evidence from 1500 whistle-blowers which was completely ignored see Breaking the Silence part one which asked all the right questions unlike the WBUK survey which had to be changed to make it relevant.

I note Dr Phillipa Whitford MP comments on the power to abuse situation, which is by the way a subject we have widely published on in detail and is included in many of our reports and books, including the above report.

The debate referred to the Robert Francis Inquiry into whistle-blowing I ask you to note that the Department of Health were forced to uphold a serious breach of confidentiality by Robert Francis whilst he was chairing this publicly funded inquiry, this breach was only upheld after the Health Department were confronted with internal emails obtained under subject access law by a journalist and long fight by myself.

If the judge in the only ever whistle-blowing inquiry can breech a whistle-blowers confidentiality then this culture is what any future whistle-blowing law has to overcome and believe me, “The office for the whistle-blower” will be about as effective as all the other so called independent regulators we waste money on. The remedy for useless regulators is not another useless regulator.

There are many other things I could comment on, but time is short so will finish with these observations,

Ann Clwyd MP refers to Julie Baily as a whistle-blower, Julie should be congratulated for her amazing work and the abuse she exposed without question. What concerns me in a debate about whistle-blowing is that MPs cannot identify who is a whistle-blower and who is a relative. Julie Baily is a relative not a whistle-blower.

Jim Fitzpatrick and K Hollinrake spoke at length about the destroyed businesses of Ms Davey and Ms Masterson and a little on the whistle-blowers involved, calling for a public inquiry into the issue affecting the victims and so there should be: but I ask you to note we have been begging the house for an acceptable public inquiry for 20 years and six weeks and have been ignored by all. Actions speak louder than words.

Stephen Kerr MP has made clear that what will be adopted is the WBUK agenda of The Office for The Compliance and Legal Industry with whistle-blower in its title for appearances. Which is a foregone conclusion unless someone in parliament has the integrity to stop this now, or media expose this.

My book There is No ME in Whistle-Blower is the case for Ednas Law the only untainted, effective and honest way forward.

The worst thing taken from a whistle-blower is trust and after yesterdays events I did not think I had anymore trust to be taken, sadly I was wrong on that count.

Eileen Chubb