Seamus Logan
MP for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East · Scottish National Party · United Kingdom
“I have seen in my own lifetime, in the land of my birth, how information can be hidden in the name of national security when in fact the interest is not that of the nation but of the Government of the day. That is why I believed that amendment 20 was important, and I am glad to say that 24 MPs from across the House agreed with me.”
“The intent of the amendment, which is supported by Members from a wide range of parties across the House, was to ensure that we here in Parliament, who are elected by the people, would, through the Intelligence and Security Committee of the House, have had oversight of any decision by the head of an intelligence service to hide informatio…”
“I rise to speak as a member of the Bill Committee and principally in support of amendment 20 in my name, which seeks to provide a necessary layer of democratic parliamentary scrutiny of the actions of the intelligence services. I listened very carefully to what the members of the ISC present—the hon.”
“The only other thing I want to say before I finish is the old French saying, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”. We need to be careful about the implementation of this law, so that we do not see the repeat of these mistakes at some point in the future. In conclusion, I reiterate our support for this legislation.”
“That said, I cannot let today pass without making some reference to the fact that, considering the long journey that we have been on—considering the meetings; considering the way in which the Bill Committee was forced to truncate its work into a very limited period; considering the negotiations that followed; considering the pulling of th…”
“Before turning to my amendment, I must acknowledge the work of the Hillsborough families and their supporters for their courage, tenacity and determination over the past 37 years, which has brought us to this point today.”
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“I thank the Minister for that response, but I am at a loss to know how the responsibility suggested by the amendment would cut across any existing code of ethical conduct. If the legislation simply stated that the person who works for the authority must take steps if they believe that another person who works for the authority has failed to act in accordance with the code, I fail to see how that would cut across any existing procedures. It would simply make the provision more robust by saying “You must take that step” rather than “You may take that step”. That is what the amendment calls for; perhaps the Minister might like to expand on why she wishes me to withdraw it.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, which is helpful. Perhaps when the Minister and I, and others, meet to discuss other matters, we might explore this in more detail. If the Minister is willing to accept that, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.”
“Thank you, Mr Dowd. Pursuant to the issues already outlined by the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills, amendment 22 is about affording enhanced protections. The main point I make to the Minister is this. If the existing protections actually worked, then why—as we heard in the evidence sessions—are so many people falling foul of whistleblowing provisions? Their careers can be blighted, and in some cases they lose their jobs. If the existing protections are sufficient, why is it necessary to consider making these amendments?”
“Amendment 23 seeks to ask the Minister to reconsider that in the light of what I have said about training needs. One only has to think of things such sexual harassment, equality training, and so on, and the massive training requirement that fell upon the public bodies many years ago. I was one of those who underwent that training. It was a significant training requirement, and I expect that the duty of candour and the code of ethics, and so on, will also have a major training requirement. With amendment 23, I am asking the Government to reconsider whether adequate funding is available to organisations to undertake the training that will follow from passing this Bill.”
“I rise to speak to amendment 23. The Minister will be aware that if the Bill is enacted, as we are all confident that it will be in due course, a large number of public authorities will face significant new training requirements. When we met with the intelligence services chair, Sir Ken McCallum, he readily acknowledged that there will be significant training implications for his organisation, and MI5 is quite small in the broader context, particularly if one thinks of the national health service, the civil service, the police, and so on. The Minister has told me that the money resolution has already been passed, and there are no new additional resources attached to this Bill, other than in relation to legal aid—I think that is in the schedules.”
“Amendment 25 has already been covered in our discussions about “may” or “must”, and I am happy to take that discussion into further meetings with the Minister.”
“In light of the Minister’s clarification, I am happy to withdraw amendment 25. However, with regard to amendment 23, I am still unclear as to what exactly the Minister is saying. Is she indicating that beyond the passage of the Bill there will be further clarifications to public bodies as to what training requirements there might be, and that resources will flow from that?”
“Given the proceedings today are a matter of record, I am happy to withdraw amendment 23. Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“There is no mention of the Government’s plan to review their decision on compensating those 1950s-born women. The truth is that Scotland cannot afford to be dragged back into Labour’s black hole, or whatever fiscal fiction they care to conjure up to justify their economic choices. We are expected to believe that the same people who told us that removing the two-child cap was deeply unwise now say that it is the centrepiece of the Government’s achievements. This begs the question, “What does Labour stand for?” It certainly does not stand for working people, families or businesses. We have, instead, a chaotic “cost of Labour” Budget, caught in a perpetual doom loop, while the north-east of Scotland pays a high price for the Government’s economic mismanagement.”
“Forget investment in a just transition; this is industrial damage on a grand scale. Talking of industrial damage, why have the Government got it in for Scotland’s world-class Scotch whisky sector? Once more it has been treated as a Treasury cash cow, with duty rising again in line with inflation, although I—as well as many others, including numerous industry sources—warned the Treasury that an increase in duty would reduce the income to the Treasury. Who does not understand the maths? Furthermore, with the family farm tax still in place, generational family farms across my constituency face ruin by Treasury spreadsheet, with the Chancellor balancing the books on the back of our domestic food security. Finally, where are the WASPIs in this Budget?”
“It will risk our energy security, incur eye-wateringly expensive carbon-heavy imports, scupper supply chain growth, and severely hamper our future renewables potential. Just today, there have been a further 100 job losses at Harbour Energy in Aberdeen. People I know in my constituency are going abroad to get contracts because they lost their jobs in Scotland. Ninety thousand oil and gas workers in the north-east are bitterly disappointed. Why? This Budget was a chance to secure their jobs and to secure £50 billion of potential investment supported by the renewables sector, which needs the skills base of our workers. The hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) talked about banking. The four big banks made a £44 billion profit last year, and there is not a word about a windfall tax on them. This is the politics of madness.”
“When I recently led an Adjournment debate in this place on the Nolan principles, I voiced my fears that people are losing faith in politics. It now seems that that is not only because of Johnson or Truss, although they did not help; it is largely due to this Government. Households in the north-east are facing harsher and colder winters than other parts of the country, and will continue to struggle as energy costs rise. That is even more unfair given the north-east’s contribution to energy production as the UK’s renewables powerhouse and, crucially, via our oil and gas sector, which is being hammered like a tent peg by this Labour Government. They are apparently hellbent on taxing our energy sector out of existence. Keeping the EPL in place until 2030 will mean haemorrhaging job losses in the tens of thousands.”
“I will confine my remarks to the north-east of Scotland. Whether it is farmers, oil and gas workers, the fishing industry, local pubs and hotels, businesses, or families who are just about managing this festive season, no one—not one person—has approached me to say what a great Budget this was. People are angry and worried, and they are right to be. We are still in a cost of living crisis, and there was no change to the energy profits levy in the Budget, nor to the family farm tax. There was more punishment for Scotch whisky and no mention of the WASPI women. There was no review of the coastal growth fund to boost the local fishing industry and, worst of all, there was sleight of hand on the cost of living for so many families.”
“Q Thank you for your evidence so far, Mr Weatherby. Notwithstanding the force of the command responsibility amendment that you have told us about, would you see an additional or bolstering role for the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament, in addition to the recommendations that you are making? Pete Weatherby: Yes, I think that would be a sensible additional measure. I think the measure that we put forward in the briefing would, in a practical and effective way, do what we are setting out to achieve, but the more oversight that can be provided, the better. The ISC is well placed to do that and therefore it would be an additional safeguard. I cannot speak for everybody on that, because I have not seen an amendment in time, but it sounds like a very sensible suggestion.”
“Clause 11(3) is about as clear as you can get when you bear in mind that it has to apply to all kinds of potential factual scenarios; it is clearly set out there how to apply that assessment of seriously improper.”
“The advantage of the Bill is that it clearly sets a standard for a jury to apply. Every jury is going to have to look at the specific evidence in the case. What did the suspects know? What were they withholding? What means did they take? What did they know at the time? Was it in the heat of the moment? The jury must consider all the evidence, and it is not possible to cater for all the different factual scenarios that might apply. The advantage, though, is that you have clearly set out in the Bill a standard set of considerations for a juror to apply, and they are clearly directed at setting a threshold between improper and seriously improper.”
“Q This question is for Mr Guest. For a member of the public like me, could you draw out the difference between what you would regard legally as “seriously improper” conduct and simply improper conduct? What I am trying to get at are examples such as someone who does not draw attention to a computer program that is clearly flawed; someone who decides not to tell anyone about a medical product that is harmful; or a situation in which there is a large-scale loss of life. For a member of the public, what is the difference between improper and seriously improper? Tom Guest: Just to make it clear, you are talking about the clause 11 offence, because the clause 12 misconduct offence also uses the words “seriously improper”. I will take the examples you have given to be referring to the offence of misleading the public.”
“The ultimate safeguard for that is the fact that the judge is in control of their own court; if they do not believe that justice is being done, they can make that very clear. Over the years, those closed material procedures have been refined and slimmed down in such a way that they are quite widely accepted to be part of a proper justice system while protecting the sensitive information at hand.”
“Lord Evans of Weardale: I would want to see the exact mechanism, but I do not think it is inconceivable that there could be a way of doing something of that sort, which in broad terms is similar to what is done with closed material proceedings in the civil courts. In order for a court to make a just decision, it needs to have access to the relevant information, even if that is sometimes highly sensitive. The closed material procedures ensure that such information can be brought forward and considered by the judge without its being visible to terrorist sympathisers, for instance, or Russian intelligence officers. Closed proceedings can work. In some ways, they are sub-optimal because you have to work quite hard to give people confidence that they are really getting at the truth for the public.”
“Q Lord Evans, in the fullness of time, the Committee will consider amendments, so the final Bill might be slightly different in its shape. One can readily understand the very persuasive points that you have made, in particular with regard to MI6 and the need for good relationships with other countries on the sharing of information. However, we might consider command responsibility in a different way in the final Bill—the provision of safe mechanisms, for example closed sessions of inquiries or investigations, or possibly reporting mechanisms to the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament. Were such arrangements in place, would that enable the head of a particular intelligence service to provide information to a safe place and, in turn, to the chair of an investigation or inquiry?”
“I said, “Well, did you attempt to resuscitate him?”, and they said, “Oh yes, he had electrode marks on him.” When I spoke to the pathologist, I said, “If a person is being resuscitated, someone puts the electrodes on, someone is getting IV access and someone is protecting their airway. You said there were no puncture marks on Philip.” Do you know what he told me? He said, “I don’t know whether you know this, but there is a cannula now that they put in and it doesn’t leave a mark.” Pure rubbish! Even on neonates you see where they have had the cannulas. I do not know. Trying to get any information from the medical team is like a brick wall, isn’t it? I really think that is an important part of this law. It is such a good law, and you would not want it to fall at the hurdle of doctor’s being protected from telling the truth.”
“I may be missing it, but I cannot see anything in the Bill that addresses that and makes it clear that in something like this patient confidentiality should not stand in the way. It is a big hurdle, because doctors have been bound by it for years and years, and I do not know how you get around that. The NHS is a huge organisation, and it will be subject to huge amounts of litigation. That is one thing that really needs to be addressed. We did not find out that Philip had gone to hospital—we did not know—until the following November, when his trainers came back with a hospital tag on. When we questioned them, they were all evasive and gave silly excuses.”
“Q I, too, salute your courage in your fight over many years to get to this point. The Bill is a landmark and will be something really good coming out of such a terrible tragedy, but it does not cover everything. We heard before lunch about things that other witnesses might like to see addressed. Hilda, is there anything that is not in the Bill that you would have liked to have seen included? Hilda Hammond: I would have liked to see the NHS included. I know people have a duty of candour, but I am a retired nurse, so I know the NHS, and at the present time doctors and NHS workers—I will not say they hide behind it—are protected by the law of patient confidentiality.”
“Those people will sit within the IOPC, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and they will also sit mainly within each of the professional standards departments of each of the 43 police forces. Some additional training will be required, but I think it will be very marginal in initial recruit training, because it very much complements what we already teach with that package.”
“Q Chief Constable, I want to follow up on some of the points you made about training. First, this is groundbreaking legislation; we are seeking to achieve a massive culture change, and there will be a code of ethics and a code of conduct. Do you foresee the possibility of additional training requirements for senior and middle managers in the police? Chief Constable Guildford: I honestly think that what is proposed here complements what we have been doing over a period of years. This is not unexpected for the police service and it is not new for senior officers, but I think your point is a fair one in so far as these are new offences, and a particular number of people will be charged with investigating them.”
“That would be the body that an individual—let us say an individual in my position, potentially—could approach, if I had one of those specific concerns. From a police service perspective, I would say that that possibly already exists, but for other members of the public sector, that might be a very legitimate point of reflection and a good point. I think there would be some opportunity and benefit for other members of the public sector, yes.”
“Q My supplementary to that comes in the light of the earlier point by the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills about the number of failings at an organisational level over the years, and there have been many. You have described various mechanisms within the police, but do you think there might be a need for something that sits completely outside the force—across the country, for different forces—to enable individuals, whether middle or senior management, to bring things to the attention of a safe place completely outside the police? Do you think that might assist? Chief Constable Guildford: To be fair, that is a good question. My reflection, very much, is that we have the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which is completely and utterly independent of the police service, all the chief constables and all the staff associations.”
“Q Thank you. Thank you for your very extensive evidence, which is very impressive from someone who has been in post for just two months. However, I wanted to ask you about your previous experience—we got little CVs for the witnesses—as a commissioner at the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and in the transformation of the Metropolitan police following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. You have extensive experience in very relevant areas. Can you comment on the scale and size of the task in front of us with this Bill? It is very extensive and lists a large number of public authorities. Can you comment on that? Cindy Butts: I am not sure that I quite understand your question.”
“Q Well, you have got the duty of candour, the code of ethics, the code of conduct and the new offences. Do you feel that that represents a challenge for large public organisations? Cindy Butts: I think it will present a challenge for them, because it is very different from what we have now and indeed from what has ever existed. That is a testament to those who have worked on the Bill and to what it is trying to achieve. It will be an enormous change for them, but it is a change that is long overdue and desperately needed. Yes, it is challenging, but I would like to think that they see the importance and value of the changes that are coming into being, and that they will rise to that challenge, because the status quo is no longer acceptable.”
“Trauma should not be measured by numbers, so I think that is a fundamental gap, which is not necessarily in this Bill, although I would not mind if it were addressed through the Bill. You only have to look at what Stephen Lawrence’s family went through or, indeed, more recently with Harry Dunn and the complexity that that poor family had to deal with, largely on their own.”
“Q And you know all about cultural change, following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry— Cindy Butts: I do, and it is part of the reason why, in my submission, I spoke to the issue of exceptional circumstances, because, of course, my role comes into play following a major tragedy, such as Hillsborough, or the Manchester Arena bombing, or indeed the Manchester synagogue attack, which I am currently deployed to assist with. On the other hand, I also know that there are cases when only one single death might have occurred, but despite the impact of that single death on a family, and indeed the public interest involved with that, such families are left without the kind of support that I provide after major incidents.”
“We have to get the culture right, and we need to do anything that we can to tilt the balance to create a culture of openness and candour. The reason people fear suffering detriment is that they have seen examples; we have to recognise that the high-profile cases that Aidan mentioned do have an impact on people coming forward. In fact, we probably ought to be celebrating those instances where people are able to raise concerns and blow the whistle, and things improve. That might help to start shifting the culture.”
“That is historical—I am talking 20 years ago—and I have certainly not experienced it recently. I am not someone who has felt that there is an impediment to me speaking up, and I see plenty of examples where people are able to do that, but you do occasionally hear of people who feel they cannot, in difficult circumstances. We are working to change that culture and make it clear that there is detriment to not speaking up rather than the other way round, but it is a complex challenge. There is progress, but there is more to do. I hope that this Bill can be part of that, but there are some cautions to getting this right and getting the balance right. Dr Chopra: I agree. I think it is about the culture. There is that saying that culture eats strategy for breakfast; in the same way, culture will eat many of these provisions.”
“Professor Fowler, I will put that to you first, because you have experience in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Professor Fowler: This is a very complicated issue. A few cases of people who have suffered detriment around freedom to speak up become very magnified. I genuinely do not see that as the experience of most people who speak up, but we do hear about it. In some cases, there is a great deal of complexity. In some cases, a massive breakdown of relationships within a unit that had started to impact the unit is what required the person to act in the way they did. Getting the balance right is a complex business. In the past, I had cases where I thought, “This is a serious issue and we need to do something about it,” and was encouraged to think otherwise.”
“Q I should declare that I worked in the health service for 33 years—not all politicians are political careerists. You are all very senior people, and obviously very experienced, but I want to get behind the corporate and ask for your personal opinions, based on your experience. My colleague drew attention to the fact that so many people in the health service have tried to blow the whistle and suffered serious detriment; in many cases, people have lost their jobs. If someone had blown the whistle on the infected blood scandal, thousands of lives would have been saved and the public purse would have been saved quite literally billions of pounds. Even with all the measures that have been put in place, why are people still suffering serious detriment when they try to blow the whistle? I am asking for your personal opinions.”
“Recognising some of the things that you mentioned, we did some work on some guidance called “Being fair”, which was about setting out some principles on a just and learning culture and what that looks like. Translating that into practice has meant creating templates and some simple principles that can be shared across different organisations to make it easy for people to speak up safely. That was co-produced with the input of regulators and clinicians who have been through some difficult processes, but it is one of the ways in which we can bring practical guidance to sometimes difficult concepts.”
“Each organisation is required to set out at the end of the year how many instances of duty of candour have been picked up, the very top headlines of what the issues were, and what they are doing about it. I thought that was a good provision that I saw operating up north. It is not perfect, but it shows how the duty is working in practice. I was working in an assurance body up there, and it allowed me to look across the country to see what was happening and whether there were areas where under-reporting may be taking place. It allowed better monitoring at national level. Helen Vernon: In addition to what we do in relation to compensation, we have a role in the effective management of concerns about practitioner performance.”
“Q How would we do that? Dr Chopra: Going back to what I was saying about our role as a regulator, I have focused on where we have taken enforcement powers where we have seen things that have not worked, but I think we could also do the opposite. As a regulator, we could be talking about those areas that we see as outstanding, and platforming what they have done with their policies, processes and procedures that have made them outstanding. Being a regulator that champions innovation and outstanding organisations is something that the CQC could contribute. That might be one way. I have worked in other jurisdictions. When I think about how duty of candour works in Scotland, one of the differences is that every organisation in Scotland has to do an annual duty of candour statement.”
“Q Ron, it says in our brief that in 2006, you predicted the impending sub-prime/collateralised debt obligation crisis. Should I sell everything? I am only kidding. Ron Warmington: I do think that everything is hyped, but luckily, I was in Burbank looking at a business that did that, and it was the worst business—at that point— that I had ever looked at, so it was easy to predict what would happen.”
“Maybe there is a case to be made for some sort of national body to be that independent investigative authority—something that is not quite a public or statutory inquiry. In my investigation, we should never have been contracted to the Post Office. That was the subject of the investigation thinking that it was paying the piper, and that therefore it could call the tune. There needs to be some body—the National Audit Office does fantastic work—to which people could go and feel in safe hands. I do not know how we change the ethics of the corporate world. I wish we could; I just do not think the ethics are the same as they were when I was a wee lad. I do not know what will bring it back. It is not just this country that is suffering in that way. I am sorry—I am dodging your question.”
“We need to get the board members to see that balance. I would like to see training in business schools on the consequences of embarking on a cover-up—there probably is none. How do we get the decision makers to do the right thing? It is not religion that is going to persuade them to do that any more—it used to be. I am used to working in huge organisations that were big enough to have their own independent investigation teams—I used to run them—which would be completely trusted by whistleblowers. We knew that one never burnt a whistleblower. They could safely come to us. That generates in an organisation a unit, a department, that can be trusted to deal with the worst possible things that you can imagine happening. Most companies are not big enough to have such an organisation, and some are big enough but do not want one.”
“Q What I wanted to ask you about seriously was culture change, because that is what a lot of the Bill is about—about how we ensure that Hillsborough or the infected blood scandal never happen again. How do we achieve that culture change? What are your opinions on that? Ron Warmington: I have been in this situation in boardrooms where something horrible has happened—a valve has blown up on the ocean floor, a building has burnt down or whatever. There needs to be a contrarian—it does not always have to be the same person—who is prepared to say, “Look, chaps, ladies, what I’m hearing is that you all want to cover this up. Let me tell you why this isn’t a good idea.” A lot of cover-ups stay covered up, but occasionally, one gets uncovered, and then the consequences are much worse than if we had come clean.”
“As a victim of phone hacking, as an ex-police officer who had their personal items sold to a news corporation, I know that you have nowhere to go in those circumstances if those corporations are just going to hide behind a freedom of speech defence. It is not freedom of speech to spread misinformation and disinformation that affect the wellbeing of hundreds of people who have already gone through intolerable experiences.”
“I mean, I have seen Ministers talk utter nonsense because their civil servants parroted nonsense that was parroted to them by people in the organisations that ought to have been subject to review. I feel sorry for MPs and Ministers in those cases. Jacqui Hames: It is important to point out that the media companies responsible for the industrial-scale phone hacking saga are corporations. They make a profit or loss, and they hide behind the free speech mantra, but ultimately they are creating a culture where this behaviour is acceptable—where criminality is acceptable. There is no doubt that a whistleblower coming from their side of the fence would be treated extremely badly.”
“Not at all—I thought it was a good answer. Flora Page: It is about incentives, isn’t it? The incentives have to be aligned for folk to do the right thing. Ron Warmington: Yes, we have to get people to make the right decision. They will not do it just because it is the right thing to do. Some people will—even though it is costly to themselves, their careers or their companies, they will do the right thing; I have been brought up with people like that. Other people need to be persuaded to do the right thing by threats or by incentives, or ideally both. I do not think we can just hope for the best that the ethics of corporate Great Britain and civil service Great Britain are going to change.”
“Do you agree with them? Daniel De Simone: I am not really here to speak on behalf of the BBC about command response or anything else but, as you heard from what I said about MI5, where responsibility can be taken by individuals, that is better than it falling on organisations, because organisations are more slippery and it is harder to hold them to account. Where an individual has to take responsibility, that is better.”
“Q Would you accept that there might be circumstances in which the head of a particular intelligence organisation might need a safe place to be able to reveal sensitive information? Daniel De Simone: Absolutely, and that is why we have closed material procedures within the courts. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee frequently sits in secret—that is not in public. There absolutely needs to be places where intelligence and sensitive matters can be discussed. Clearly, no one wants harm to national security or for there to be genuine damage to anyone. I think there are ways of dealing with it. When he gave evidence earlier, Lord Evans said that himself, and he is the former head of MI5.”
“Q With all that said, do you think the reach of the Official Secrets Act might go a little too far in some circumstances? Daniel De Simone: In what way?”
“There is obviously a balance, because security and intelligence agencies do not want to feel that anyone who works there can just go off and reveal things that they think are very sensitive, but equally it is also true that there can be things that are wrong within those organisations, and there is not always an obvious place for someone to go if they feel like that. There is often a big risk to that person for doing that. So yes, it can be too much.”
“It is hard to describe a particular example, but in a way that might prevent a whistleblower from taking necessary action. Daniel De Simone: I think so, yes. Journalists have been arrested under the Official Secrets Act. I am a journalist who has worked in the area of security and matters to do with terrorism, so I am familiar with there being a risk to journalists with official secrets. Someone might tell you something that puts themselves at risk, or they might put you at risk. In practice we see very few prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act—we do not see many of them now—so this is not something that is happening all the time, but there is a risk.”