Health and Social Care Act 2012: Risk Register

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will now publish the risk register prepared in advance of the passage through Parliament of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, it remains the Government’s position that they will not be publishing the transition risk register. The decision to withhold the risk register was based on the principle that Governments, together with their civil servants, need to be able to consider all aspects of policy formation, including its risks, in private. It remains our view that a full and candid assessment of risk and the mitigating action required to manage it is carried out within a safe space.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for reminding us of the Government’s position and of what is in the public domain, but I remind him that the Question is about what the Cabinet and the Secretary of State decided should not be in the public domain. Is there no shame or embarrassment on the part of the Government, who have imposed, quite rightly, a duty of candour on the NHS but who decline to practise that policy themselves by being candid with the public, particularly with those of us who use the NHS? What are the Government hiding? If it is nothing, they should publish the register tomorrow and put it away.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the Government are fully committed to transparency and openness, but they need also to be able to manage large and complex projects and programmes efficiently and effectively. If requests for information are made that threaten to compromise their ability to do that, as is the case here, then the Government have to weigh up whether releasing what is being asked for is, on balance and bearing in mind the consequences, in the public interest. Up to now, we have taken the view that the public interest is not served by publication.