Listed Investment Companies (Classification etc) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, this House has heard from three experts, and it will now hear from a layman—I will be extremely brief. My position and that of these Benches is very strongly to support the Bill. As we have heard, especially from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and my noble friend Lady Bowles, listed closed-end investment companies are absolutely fundamental to investments in longer-term, more illiquid activities exactly of the kind the Chancellor has discussed promoting.

I want to disabuse some of the conversation suggesting that the Bill actually increases risk. The Bill overturns an error in the existing regulatory arrangement that, in effect, forces a double-counting of costs for holistic closed-end investment companies, versus other kinds of funds. It is simply an error that has resulted from the complex layers of regulation and legislation.

Like others, I congratulate the Government on having very quickly taken some steps to bring in two SIs, and the FCA on having declared forbearance while the detail is worked through. The reality is, however, that we cannot let this drag on from day to day because it is having a very immediate impact. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, talked about new companies, but it is basically driving this industry out of the country. We have to act faster.

The two statutory instruments, the forbearance and the FCA were important steps forward, but are not sufficient as they have missed out some key elements. Those key elements need to be tackled immediately. The quickest way the Government could do it is to give fair weather to this Bill.

Whistleblowers

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Kramer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the current capacity and efficacy of the law to provide confidentiality for whistleblowers and to protect them from retaliation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

My Lords, whistleblowers play an important role in shining a light on wrongdoing in public life. They need confidence that they will be taken seriously and will have legal recourse if subjected to detriment or dismissal for making a protected disclosure. There are already day-one rights for workers, but we intend to strengthen whistleblowers’ protections.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, whistleblowers who are defined as workers, and therefore protected by the existing law, still fail to win 96% of their cases in employment tribunals because of evidentiary requirements. They are financially ruined by cases that can drag on for years and, even if they win, their careers are destroyed because the tribunal does not acknowledge blacklisting. Will the Minister commit to an office of the whistleblower to ensure genuine protection for whistleblowers and proper investigation of tip-offs—to avoid a repeat of Horizon Post Office, Grenfell, financial mis-selling, Letby and Al Fayed, to name but a few?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to raise those cases. We all take those issues very seriously, and we have debated them here in the Chamber on many occasions. There should not be a need for anybody to whistleblow; people should have their concerns taken seriously in the first place. This Government are absolutely determined, from the top, to make sure that people who have concerns at the workplace are able to raise them without the detriment to which the noble Baroness refers. With regard to an office for the whistleblower, there are a number of ideas around this. We are looking at the role and remit that such a body could have. There will be a need to look at the cost, role and function of a potential new body, but we are looking at all the ways we can ensure that whistleblowers are protected at the workplace, as they should be.