I rise to speak to new clauses 19 and 22, which are on today’s amendment paper for the Committee to scrutinise thanks to the complacent and worrying attitudes of both the FCA and the BBA at last week’s evidence session, when I specifically raised the issues of banking culture and whistleblowing.

During the previous exchanges, the Minister indicated the importance of culture, for which I am grateful. I have been concerned with culture for a long time. In one of my previous lives, I undertook more than 30 cultural studies of large, complex organisations. As many Members will be aware because I have related this fact more than once, large-scale international studies have shown that around 70% of major corporate failures are primarily as a result of a failure of culture—they are not about detailed regulation or detailed law, but about culture. In that regard, this issue must be taken very seriously indeed.

A very important part of culture for the related new clause on whistleblowing is to assess internal trust within organisations. Unless there is sufficient cultural trust, whistleblowers will not feel secure or safe. Despite advances in recent years in the protection of whistleblowers, I am sure that I am not alone in having had people come to me, an MP for barely over a year, saying that they wish to raise issues in organisations but fear the consequences.

I will highlight that by picking just one example—the case of Paul Moore, with whom some Members will be familiar—from the financial sector to show the importance of culture and whistleblowing. He is best known as the HBOS whistleblower, following his dismissal from Halifax Bank of Scotland in 2004. He was appointed to the role of head of group regulatory risk at the end of 2003. He was appointed to the role of head of group regulatory risk at the end of 2003 and had formal responsibilities for the bank’s policy and oversight of executive management’s compliance with Financial Services Authority regulation. During 2004, while conducting reviews of the bank’s sales culture, Moore and his team uncovered mis-selling and unethical practice. He reported those findings to the HBOS board as his job demanded, and was fired on 8 November 2004 by the HBOS group chief executive officer, James Crosby. Since then, Mr Moore has been shunned by the financial community for doing his job and doing it well.

Crosby, however, did not immediately suffer for his actions. He was part of an almost untouchable banking and establishment culture. Some time later, on 11 July 2006, Crosby was appointed by my predecessor as Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath to lead the Government’s public-private forum on identity management. Also in 2006 and after sacking his risk manager, Crosby received a knighthood for services to the financial industry. In April 2008, Crosby was appointed by the then Chancellor, Alistair Darling, to head up a working group of mortgage industry experts to advise the Government on how to improve the functioning of the mortgage market. I could go on. Only after parliamentary inquiries into the collapse of HBOS, which included reviewing Mr Moore’s situation, did Crosby lose all his positions and half his pension, and relinquish his knighthood.

That it should take parliamentary inquiries to deal with something that was in the public domain—that a senior bank official had been sacked for doing his job—tells us something about what has been wrong and what many consider still is wrong with much of the remaining close-knit culture in the financial sector. Despite changes since that time, we remain unconvinced that enough has been done to explore the culture in the financial sector and properly safeguard whistleblowers, hence we have tabled new clauses 19 and 22. I am sure we will return to this issue many times as many of us try to secure a much more sensible regime, but in the meantime I will be pleased to listen to the Minister’s response.