https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/norman-lamb/1439

“I have been horrified by the appalling treatment of whistleblowers who highlight wrongdoing within our financial services. In too many cases they suffer retribution, being threatened with disciplinary action and forced out of their jobs rather than having their concerns taken seriously. It is an intolerable scandal – people who are doing the right thing, crushed by huge organisations. I have seen the devastating impact that this can have on people’s mental health as well as their careers, which is why I am proud to be a patron of BankConfidential. It is vital that we have a framework in place to ensure that whistleblowers are protected and there is an effective process for delivering justice when bad practice is exposed.”

“Historically, employees who have sought to publicise the workplace
improprieties of employers did so in the expectation that their
careers and future prospects would be ruined. Whistleblowers
anticipated not only being discredited personally by their employers,
but being unprotected by legislation – they took their chances and
knew they were doing so. That was courageous.

Times have changed: legislators globally have sought to redress this
iniquitous situation through the recognition that Whistleblowers, by
revealing improprieties, were in fact performing a task which was in
the public interest. Disclosure of wrongdoings identified in the
workplace needed to be protected at a regulatory level so that
employees revealing the same were shielded from damage for doing so.

In England, The Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) was passed with
the intention of providing this protection, but it is very limited in
its objectives and, in practise, is manifestly not fit for purpose.
How can the identity of a Whistleblower employee be disclosed to his
or her employer by the regulator to whom an employee discloses
wrongdoing on the presumption that any such revelation was being done
confidentially ? It is simply not right. More absurdly, how can the
regulator concerned seek to justify such disclosure with a straight
face ? This makes no sense and could not have been intended by
Parliament: admirable as PIDA may appear, it does not work in
practise.

What is now required is an independent Whistleblower regulator who
operates separately from any other regulators. Whistleblowers should
be confident that when they seek to disclose bad practices their
identity is not revealed. This assurance is currently not possible.

Until an independent Whistleblowers regulator is created, I am proud
to be a patron of BankConfidential, an organisation established to
assist in the disclosure of improper practises by people working in
the finance industry whilst at the same seeking to maintain their
anonymity.

The finance industry has sadly been revealed to be riven with
opportunities for misconduct – real or perceived. As we all know,
public confidence in the finance industry has been destroyed. To
restore the integrity of that sector a framework needs to be
established so that all industry practises are transparent. This
requires them to be revealed and capable of proper interrogation and
examined. An essential part of this process is that Whistleblowers are
protected when they expose, or seek to identify, improper practises.

Bank Confidential relevantly seeks to offer a means for Whistleblowers
to anonymously reveal actual or seemingly wrongful practises in the
finance sector until PIDA is suitably amended and an independent
regulator is in place.”