I rise very much to support the comments of my noble friend Lord Bethell and, like him, to thank the Minister for bringing forward the government amendments. I will try to address some of the comments the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has just made.
One must view this as an exercise in working out how one drives culture change in some of the biggest and most powerful organisations in the world. Culture change is really hard. It is hard enough in a company of 10 people, let alone in a company with hundreds of thousands of employees across the world that has more money than a single country. That is what this Bill requires these enormous companies to do: to change the way they operate when they are looking at an inevitably congested, contested technology pipeline, by which I mean—to translate that out of tech speak—they have more work to do than even they can cope with. Every technology company, big or small, always has this problem: more good ideas than their technologists can cope with. They have to prioritise what to fix and what to implement. For the last 15 years, digital companies have prioritised things that drive income, but not the safety of our children. That requires a culture change from the top of the company.
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I draw heavily on my experience over the last eight years as a non-exec on the Court of the Bank of England, where I have seen first-hand the implementation of the senior managers regime. I have seen it first-hand because of the extraordinary privilege of a member of
the court to sit as an observer in the Prudential Regulatory Authority meetings, but I have also seen it first-hand as the chair of the Bank’s remuneration committee, where I had to sign off as a senior manager. I promise your Lordships that it completely changes your approach to compliance if your own personal name is being used. That makes a huge difference. It does not matter how huge or historic the company, which is why I used the example of the Bank of England; once it is in your name, you behave differently.
We need the very senior managers of these enormous companies to change the way they behave. Sad though this is, I do not believe they will change if it is just about money, as we see time and again. They will change if they have to think about whether, in their own name, they are breaking the law. My understanding of the Government’s amendment—this is where I get to my questions for the Minister—is that they cannot stumble into that by mistake; they have to wilfully ignore the direction of the regulator. I hope the Minister can confirm and explain that.
My other question is: are we confident that the amendment as drafted really tackles the very senior managers? I share some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: we do not want middle managers, deep in the leviathan of an enormous company, being sacrificial lambs while the company does not really address the issue. We want change from the top to reshape the way these companies think about the trade-offs they have to face. I hope the Minister can clarify that.