NHS: Transition Risk Register

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, this issue turns on a disagreement between ourselves and the Information Commissioner about where the balance of public interest lies. Our view is that the balance of public interest does not lie in disclosure, and his view is the opposite. It would be likely, if we gave the Information Commissioner a second opportunity to look at this, that he would come to the same conclusion as before, so we have to let due process occur.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, the strategic health body in London was perfectly content to make the register of risks on the health Bill available, so the House needs to know, first, what the difference is—except in terms of size—in the national Department of Health making its risk register available. Secondly, I realise that in appealing the Information Commissioner’s decision the Government have said, in effect, that this decision has cross-government implications. Does the Minister accept that it also has wider implications for Parliament? In this House, our ability to scrutinise legislation effectively must be in doubt if any Government withhold important information from us, so what course of action does the Minister suggest that noble Lords in this House should take under these circumstances?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, to answer the second part of the question first, a substantial number of the risks pertaining to the Bill are already in the public domain and we are considering whether there is scope to draw these sources of information together in a single place, so that noble Lords can look at them more easily. To answer the first part of the noble Baroness’s question, I made inquiries about NHS London. Its situation is very interesting and quite different from that of the Department of Health. NHS London developed its risk management strategy with a view to it being visible to stakeholders and the public, as its document says. It is therefore a reasonable assumption that officials will have worded their risks for inclusion in the register in the knowledge that that wording would be likely to form part of a document placed in the public domain, so there is a very real difference between the two situations.