(Thirsk and Malton)
(Con):...I am grateful to the Minister for his response. As he
knows, economic crime costs the people of this country £100
billion per annum, according to the National Crime
Agency The Government have committed themselves
repeatedly to legislation to give our agencies the tools that
they need to tackle this problem, and it was therefore concerning
to hear from my noble Friend Lord Agnew—who recently resigned
from his role as Minister responsible for countering fraud—that a
decision had been made to drop the economic crime Bill from the
legislation that is due in the next parliamentary Session.
(Cheadle) (Con): I
congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton on
securing this important urgent question. The National Crime
Agency using figures supplied by the national
fraud indicator, estimates that up to £190 billion is lost to
fraud, with £140 billion of that coming in the private sector and
£40 billion coming in the public sector. That is a huge amount,
which could be best invested in our economies. Does the Minister
agree that we need to reward and protect whistleblowers who are
at the forefront of this? We are talking about the informed
insiders who bring these issues to light; more than 40% of this
crime is uncovered by whistleblowers. Does he agree that the
current legislation, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, is
not fit for purpose and needs to be looked at again, and that we
need an office of the whistleblower, which would bring together
all of these areas?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy
and Industrial Strategy (): I congratulate my hon.
Friend and thank her for the work she does in this area. We have
had a number of conversations and we will always look to see what
more we can do to strengthen the whistleblowing framework in
legislation. We do not necessarily agree on the end result, but,
again, it is a complicated area that we do want to get right, for
the reasons she set out. I will continue to work with her and
with my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton.
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