Tessa Munt MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for that clarity. On the basis that we are going to meet to discuss this, and that Pete Weatherby and hon. Members from the Minister’s party will be involved in those conversations, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I know that we dealt with this matter earlier, but I again put on the record my concerns about subcontractors in tiers 1, 2 and 3, who often hold key information. We need to find some way to make sure that they are within the scope of this provision.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister accept that a huge number of authorities, bodies and organisations may not, whether wittingly or not, recognise somebody as a whistleblower? There is a real danger in people believing that they are whistleblowing and that they will have protection, yet the companies not recording them as whistleblowing incidents. How does the Minister see that working?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I again seek clarity. Are non-executive directors of an NHS trust, for example—who might be party to all sorts of information—within the scope of the Bill? I would also like to check whether school governors—and schools that are academies sometimes use different names, such as “partners”—are also picked up in the list.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  In the interests of clarity, will the Minister explain whether the intelligence and security services are now captured by the list in part 2? Will she also explain what happens to regular or reserve forces when they are abroad, when they might be subject to devices such as the court martial? Those are two very specific things.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to hear that he will be part of that discussion, because I think he has a good grip on everything, and it saves me reading the Minister a page and a half of his comments today.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Armed Forces Chaplains (Licensing) Measure 2025 (HC 1454) Abuse Redress Measure 2025 (HC 1455) · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Mundell. I asked a question—I wonder if I might have the courtesy of a reply.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Armed Forces Chaplains (Licensing) Measure 2025 (HC 1454) Abuse Redress Measure 2025 (HC 1455) · Hansard source

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  My question was whether the hon. Lady, as the Second Church Estates Commissioner, will receive a progress report herself from the Archbishops’ Council, perhaps on an annual basis. Can I have clarity on that, please?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Armed Forces Chaplains (Licensing) Measure 2025 (HC 1454) Abuse Redress Measure 2025 (HC 1455) · Hansard source

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  May I ask the Second Church Estates Commissioner whether there is something in place to allow for the Archbishops’ Council to report, perhaps on an annual basis, to her on progress with the scheme?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Armed Forces Chaplains (Licensing) Measure 2025 (HC 1454) Abuse Redress Measure 2025 (HC 1455) · Hansard source

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  It would be incredibly relevant, bearing in mind that I and any number of others have constituents who have waited decades and decades for this. It is not beyond the Church to defer and to delay. It is important that the hon. Lady is fully aware of the impact of this Measure and that the Church reports to her.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q My caveat would be that it is not just the state per se; we have heard that there are any number of private organisations that act appallingly—whistleblowers come forward, and we need to catch that in the scope. Steve Rotheram: I obviously support any whistleblowing protections. Certainly, if there is any enhancement, it should be a requirement for consultation with trade unions when we develop better codes of ethical conduct. There is definitely stuff we can do on that. We need to empower public servants to foster a culture of candour, and that is why the Bill is so important. Thanks very much, Tessa; I remember you and others, too—it was quite a moment in Parliament. Do not forget that those people have been fighting since we left to get something like this on the statute book. The weight of responsibility on all of you on this Committee is enormous, and I know that you will do well by the families and those campaigners. Andy Burnham: No pressure.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I recognise your efforts to try to get this right, but I suppose it is distressing for most members of the public to discover that, with monotonous regularity, people who work within your services can only go to the BBC, so that the BBC can put people in undercover to find out what is going wrong and then produce a programme that everyone gets really upset about. You have had a professional and a statutory duty of candour for some time, and it is all wrapped around patient safety, yet there still seems to be a significant problem. I have a couple of questions. First, what do you feel you can do to stop the suppression of witnesses? Will the Bill cover that? We know there are legal duties attached to this, but something has to change to stop whistleblowers suffering detriment. I do not know whether you feel the Bill is going to do it, because whatever has been in place for the last 10 years has not done it. Secondly, the NHS has shown a willingness to accept people who have been recycled from roles in other services, departments and organisations when they might not have been deemed to have succeeded in those roles; they suddenly become chairs of trusts or take other roles in the organisation. There is something not quite right going on, in my opinion—it is my opinion. Helen Vernon: I will talk to something that we are doing to help with that, at least in relation to the NHS duty of candour. One of the things that we have heard is a barrier to openness is the fear of a subsequent claim. As a public body, we can do something about that, because we can issue guidance to the NHS that debunks it, in essence, by saying, “It’s incredibly important that you put the duty of candour first, that you are open and honest, that you share information when it is available, and that you do the right thing for the patient, regardless of the possibility of subsequent litigation.” That is one thing that we have been doing. It is a message that we have found it quite difficult to permeate in its totality, bearing in mind that we have clinicians coming up all the time through training, for example. We need to get to people when they are taking on a new role and we need to cover the whole of the NHS, which is evidently huge, but it is certainly something we make a huge effort on, to make sure that we remove barriers where we hear of them. Professor Fowler: From the NHSE point of view, I would argue that progress has been made but it is imperfect. I accept that point, but I think we have seen evidence of greater levels of transparency, as I said. Obviously, the Bill will need to interact with existing provisions, such as professional regulatory standards. We have a fit and proper person test that we apply— Arun might want to come on to that, because some of it is done through the CQC. We now have a 10-year plan that commits to radical transparency as part of its aims. Underlying that, in order to drive up quality, there is a commitment to a quality strategy, which we are working on and will look again at assurance mechanisms and how we tidy them up and simplify them to some extent, but also how we improve them. In making these changes we have to be very cautious to understand, first, why people do not step forward if they do not step forward, and secondly, that we have obligations, for example, to protect patient confidentiality in any information we release, protect our staff, and look at proportionality. I mentioned the volume of papers we have looked at; it is important to understand that there are resource implications for clinicians’ time in responding to some of this. There is a lot of complexity to some of the things we need to look at in making sure there is not a chilling effect and that people are willing to step forward and do not see a potential impediment. Dr Chopra: Aidan has already mentioned the fit and proper person test, but I want to make a couple of additional points. It is so difficult that we have to legislate for candour, but some of this is about culture in organisations, and there is a way of tapping into looking at an organisation’s culture. We have questions in NHS staff surveys about how confident staff feel about raising concerns, and whether those concerns will be responded to. I find that data is quite helpful to understand a sense of the culture in the organisation. The other point I was going to mention was about inequalities, demographics and protected characteristics. A great proportion—up to 40%—of the medical workforce in the NHS come from minoritised ethnic backgrounds, and they are often the people who struggle the most to have their concerns raised. They are the ones who are scared of retribution for raising concerns. Tackling that will be a significant factor in making sure that the duty of candour, as it is currently is meant to work, is as successful as we would like it to be. In terms of how we can measure some of that, my team was able to run about 100 of our recent reports using a large language model in AI to look at duty of candour. When it comes to comparing those providers that were rated “Outstanding” or “Good” with those that were rated “Requires improvement”, an open, transparent culture consistently came up as a likely factor. That is evidence that such a culture is more likely to lead to an organisation that we describe as discharging its duty of candour well. These factors are really important. On the interplay point that Aidan mentioned, we will have the statutory duty of candour, the professional duty of candour, the provisions of the Bill and the NHS manager’s duty of candour. We have got to make sure that these four pieces of legislation work together.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Dowd. Is it possible that we can ask witnesses who might have something to add if they can write to you as Chair?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We have had the Nolan principles of public life since 1995. If I were to pick out four of those seven principles, it would be: integrity, openness, honesty and accountability. Where are we now with the Bill in comparison with that? What is going to change the culture? Professor Waters: I have written various messages recently to Martyn Oliver, the chief inspector of Ofsted, quoting those Nolan principles. I have received replies that apologise for his insensitivity and promise empathy. I have not asked for empathy, sensitivity or a performance of those; I have asked for honesty, but that clearly does not work. Ofsted has a code of conduct, which they kept quoting in the inquest, but the coroner clearly found that that code of conduct did not apply. There are the Nolan principles, codes of conduct, accountability hearings, and even an offence of perjury, but none of them seem to work—they are too easy to slip away from. A statutory duty of candour with the possibility of criminal sanctions is sadly what is needed—it beggars belief, but that is what is needed to make public bodies be honest. Deborah Coles: I think the thing that people find quite shocking when we are talking about the Hillsborough law is that you have to effectively legislate to get people to tell the truth. I support what Professor Waters says about penalties, but is also about monitoring and evaluation, because the Hillsborough law will only be as good as its implementation. As I said, up and down the country, there are families going through legal processes that are so defensive and traumatising that the injustices that you heard expressed today by the Hillsborough families—and you will hear more later—about the lying, victim blaming, delays and denials are still being faced by families going through these processes today. That is why the Bill is so important.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I suspect my colleague is going to ask you about journalism more generally—surprise, surprise.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We had a discussion earlier today about whether the powers also cover subcontractors. I think that is probably one of Ron’s questions as well. Ron Warmington: I have it written down, yes.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I wonder if you can explain what happens. You have had a code of practice for ethical policing in force for a while, and there is the code of conduct and the Nolan principles. What is expected of police officers, in terms of serving the public and not serving their organisation, could not be clearer, yet catastrophe after catastrophe has come to light, and they continue to come to light. If I were a police officer who wished to whistleblow, to whom would I go? Chief Constable Guildford: You would have a number of opportunities to whistleblow as a police officer or a member of police staff. First and foremost, there are opportunities for you to make a disclosure to your line management. You could make a disclosure to another supervisor. You could also make a confidential disclosure, because each force has a confidential reporting mechanism. It is a reported line, and it is done anonymously. On top of that, we brought in some measures recently that enable people to make a report via Crimestoppers. We also very actively encourage the reporting of any whistleblowing via all our staff associations—the trade unions on the side of police staff, and the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents’ Association and the Chief Police Officers’ Staff Association on the side of police officers.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Forgive me, but you are a slight peculiarity in that your function was very different. I suspect that you might have a different view about an organisation like Fujitsu, which was contracted by the Post Office and which seems to carry the whole of the blame—besides the behaviour of the Post Office—for the catastrophe that happened so many people. Ron Warmington: Pretty well the only material whistleblower was Richard Roll, whom I spoke to well before he was prepared to come out. We obviously protected him. We tried to give hints to people at the Post Office that there might be a whistleblower at some point—when I knew jolly well that there was—in order to give them an opportunity to follow the righteous path. They did not really pick up on that. We have always been a bit like journalists—one never burns one’s source. If any investigator ever did that, his or her career would be over. Once you get a reputation for advancing your own case over the body of a whistleblower, your career is dead. It is self-interest to protect whistleblowers. I have on many occasions been asked by companies—in fact, bank chairmen—“Can you help us find out who this whistleblower is?” I have told them, “You’d better find another firm. I could find them in a heartbeat, but I’m not going to.” That is corruption coming out again: “This person’s causing our company problems. Can you help us find the troublemaker?” “No. Go away.” But not all firms do that. Flora Page: On the Fujitsu question, it is extraordinary that, over all those years that Fujitsu was remotely accessing sub-postmasters’ accounts and using their user IDs to enter transactions, there were no whistleblowers. That tells you all you need to know about certain organisations not providing the structure and the framework for whistleblowers to come forward. There must have been hundreds, possibly thousands, of people who knew what was going on.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Very good; I did not know that. There are also subcontractors of subcontractors, because it is commonly the case that we are looking not just at the first-tier contractual relationship, but at the second, third and sometimes fourth-tier relationships. There is a question about that. There is then another issue. Some of you might want to comment on the fact that in March this year—I think I am right in saying this—His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs introduced a whistleblower reward scheme for reporting fraud, and on where that scheme might go and how useful it is. I have no idea how successful it has been—I do not have any figures for it—but one senses that it might be successful. Ron Warmington: In a sense, that is where this all started, isn’t it? I mean, there were defence contracts in the United States and someone thought, “I’m going to blow the whistle on such and such a corporation, which has been ripping off the Defence Department by $100 million. Therefore, I’m going to get something out of it.” Actually, that is quite healthy, until it goes horribly wrong; it is a double-edged sword. On the point about subcontractors, yes, we felt quite exposed when the Post Office tried to—in fact, did—implement draconian contractual terms. That was extraordinarily risky for myself, and for my fellow shareholders and directors. The only time that we could speak safely was when we had parliamentary privilege in situations such as this one. All the rest of the time, we did not; if we spoke up, we were at enormous risk. That did not stop us, as it happened. It is not necessarily a good thing to say that an investigation firm such as my own, which is contracted to look into something that is going wrong or that has gone wrong, should be hugely protected in some way, because then it would not be trusted to do the work in the first place. You somehow have to strike a balance between the client relationship—not that the client ever should be the subject of the investigation—and some sort of protection. At the moment, the process does not work. It only worked in this case because we didn’t give a damn. As far as we were concerned, we did not really need the work, and did not need the money and did not mind being fired. But not many firms are in that lucky situation.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You obviously use the services of whistleblowers. Daniel De Simone: Absolutely, and I frequently rely on confidential sources, like police officers, who provide me with information that, under the law, they probably should not provide. For example, I have spent a very long time investigating the Stephen Lawrence murder, and that has led to a review to look at whether the case should be reopened. That is a good thing, and the family are very happy with the fact that that has happened, but it simply would not have happened without officers helping me who probably should not be helping me. The fact that they did has led to good things.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q It is nice to hear you, Cindy. You referred to the families and an awful lot of individuals who considered that they were really looking forward to you being part of their solutions. Might I ask you to consider something? You were talking about language. I think that what will happen is that every different organisation will create its own code of ethics and own interpretation of the duty of candour. Is there perhaps a place for the Government, or for you and the Government, to work together to make a single version? I suspect that the public, out there in the real world, will interpret the code of ethics and the duty of candour in a particular way, and will use ordinary language. They will know when it is right and what it is saying, but we might be in terrible danger of local authorities—some of them doing one thing; some of them doing another—and different people interpreting the rules in a particular way. I recognise the difficulties with Nolan. They have been with us for 30 years, but clearly the Nolan principles have not worked. Is there a possibility of a single framework within which everyone understands what everyone is up to? I say that particularly because in earlier evidence from the chief constable, when he was questioned about various aspects, he thought that it was a brilliant question for other authorities, but not for his. Cindy Butts: Thank you for that interesting question. The duty will cover hundreds—thousands, probably—of bodies, all with very different roles and remits, so having one coherent framework might be difficult, because each and every one of them needs something that is right for them and that fits the context of the way in which they work and their objectives. That said, there is value in thinking about some overarching principles that certainly ought to apply to how each organisation develops its bespoke framework. First and foremost, however, it must fit in with an overarching set of principles. That question also points to the issue I raised before, which is about ensuring that victims and survivors are involved in the implementation. I think that they can play a crucial role in ensuring that organisations have a framework that is fit for purpose and that is informed by their lived experience. That would be how I look at it.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I recognise the efforts that you are going to at the CQC. I have already declared my interest as someone who has been involved in whistleblowing for 15 years. It is alarming how many relatively senior NHS people end up in employment tribunals because they have been ousted for raising something. That concerns me hugely. I will leave it there, unless you wish to say something. Dr Chopra: I will briefly come back on that. One of the considerations in the 10-year plan is the role of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, which will work more closely with the CQC in time. The HSSIB has what is called a protected safe space, which allows people, without fear of accountability and retribution, to raise concerns. One of the things we are concerned about in the Bill is whether the scope of clause 5(1), on other investigations, will include investigations undertaken by HSSIB when it works closely with CQC. It will be important to protect that space for the reasons you mention.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to place on the record that I do not believe I have met Flora before, and am not sure I have met James before, although I have connections with the organisation. However, I have met Ron Warmington before, when I was working with James Arbuthnot. It is very nice to see you again, sir. Ron Warmington: Likewise.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q What impact do you feel the Bill, as drafted, might have on whistleblowers? You mentioned whistleblowers; I have an interest in whistleblowers. Do you feel the Bill has been built to support and encourage whistleblowers generally? Daniel De Simone: I am more equipped to talk about MI5 and the case that I have been involved with, but whistleblowers are clearly incredibly important in my job. I would want to see every protection for whistleblowers, whereby organisations foster a culture in which whistleblowers feel able to come forward and do not feel that it is harmful for them or damaging to their career. I would obviously encourage anything that can be done to encourage that.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Could you consider the intersection of prevention of future deaths reports with the Bill? Is there anything that should be added to the Bill, or any process that should be changed, to make those reports more effective? Judge Durran: The Bill includes provisions that a coroner can write a conduct report. It is not clear to me at the moment what the mechanism will be for such a report and how they should be handled. At present, as I understand it, conduct reports raising concerns will be sent to the chief coroner, responses will be sent to the chief coroner, and the chief coroner will account for those within my annual report to the Lord Chancellor. What is not clear to me is the mechanism of how that will happen and whether the intention is, through regulation, to create mechanisms similar to prevention of future deaths reports. It is important to say that I am not, nor should I be, a regulator. I am sure that many will say that publication of a report and publication of a response without any other mechanism will not achieve much. I am concerned about what those mechanisms are and whether they will fundamentally serve a purpose, or whether I will simply publish them and they will be there for people to see, but no meaningful action will be taken upon them.