NHS Risk Register

Debate between John Healey and George Hollingbery

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I want to begin by challenging something that was said by the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), when he opened the debate. He has also shouted it several times from a sedentary position, and indeed he intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) a moment ago to make the same point. He keeps saying “It is a different register”.

Let me quote, at some length, what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier: “This led my predecessor”—the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey)—“to initiate a freedom of information request for the transition risk register. I wish to point out that my right hon. Friend did not request the full departmental risk register, which was subject to a similar request in 2009”, which was, indeed, released by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Member for Leigh went on: “There are three crucial differences between the situation and the subject of today's debate. They would do well to listen because the Prime Minister got his facts wrong at Prime Minister's Question Time. The first important difference is that this relates to a different document. This debate is about the transition risk register, not the strategic risk register”.

I may have misinterpreted this, because it is not my key area, but let me refer briefly to the decision notice issued by the Information Commissioner. Paragraph 16 about the “Scope of the request” states:

“At the internal review stage the public authority referred to two separate risk registers which it said were relevant to the request and held by the department – the ‘risk register centred on the Health and Care Bill’ and the ‘strategic risk register'… For the avoidance of doubt, the Commissioner wishes to state that he agrees with the public authority…and that it is the strategic risk register which should properly be seen as falling within the scope of the request.”

In short, the document that is requested now, and the one that the right hon. Member for Leigh refused to release in 2009 are, as adjudged by the Information Commissioner, exactly the same document. The right hon. Gentleman may wish to refer to that later, and I am entirely happy for him to do so. If I have got it wrong, I am happy to be corrected.

[John Healey]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way because, uncharacteristically, I think that he has got it wrong. The Information Commissioner’s notice considered two different freedom of information requests: one for the transition risk register from me, and one for the strategic departmental register from a journalist from the Evening Standard. The decision notice was a decision on both those registers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) is absolutely right: in our motion and the debate, we are talking about a different document—different in nature—from the one to which he referred and the one which was relevant in 2009.

[George Hollingbery]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clearing up part of this, but I think that the decision that was made by the Information Commissioner was on the strategic risk register and its release. No doubt we can discuss that later, but I am grateful to him for his intervention and for clearing that up.

More generally, we must consider whether the Bill has been properly assessed both in the House and outside by many people. There are 443 pages of closely worded analysis on the impact of the Bill, and the impact assessments cover every possible aspect imaginable, including risk management and the risks associated with the new Bill. That information has been in the public domain for many months, and I do not honestly believe that there is anything to be gained by issuing further risk registers that may scare a number of people about the things that they have to consider. The risk register would add very little. The answer, basically, is that it is an expedient hook on which to hang a debate: to raise again in the House a topic that has been raised a great many times—quite rightly, in many ways, as many amendments have been made to the Bill. However, the quality of speeches from the Opposition demonstrates to me at least that the point of the debate was not to discuss the risk register but to use it as a hook on which to hang a particular viewpoint.

It is well known that when the right hon. Member for Leigh was Secretary of State he refused to release the risk register. I have examined that, and I was going to quote him further at length, but the House has heard that quote several times today, so I will not trouble hon. Members with it again. The argument that he made then was a sensible one, and it remains sensible now. Do we really believe that it is good for the Government to make public all their plans for the management of every conceivable risk that they might encounter? Some of those risks will scare people rigid, and I do not honestly believe that that is the right use for the strategic risk register.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), although he is wrong to say that this debate is simply a device for having a bigger debate. The motion is very simple and I had hoped that it would command wide support across this House, because this is not about being for or against the NHS Bill, or about being for or against the NHS reorganisation. The matter before us is whether we are for or against good government and the proper accountability of government to the public and to Parliament. A more open Government—a Government required to be more accountable—must raise their game and are more likely to be a better Government.

The Prime Minister said as much in the first month after the last election. He said that

“we’re going to rip off that cloak of”—

Government—

“secrecy and extend transparency as far and as wide as possible. By bringing information out into the open, you’ll be able to hold government and public services to account.”

Not for the first time, people are looking to the Prime Minister now to honour the promises he made, especially on the NHS. I have to say that 15 months after I made the original freedom of information request and 13 months after the Government introduced the NHS Bill, they are now dragging out the refusal to comply with the Information Commissioner in a way that prevents the public from getting a better understanding of the plans and prevents Parliament from doing our proper job of legislating well and legislating wisely.

[George Hollingbery]

rose—

[John Healey]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I have followed his speech.

[George Hollingbery]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman could provide the House with a single example of where, in the transition of a Bill, a risk register of this sort has been used to inform the House’s debate. He may well be able to do so, and I would be grateful if he could.

[John Healey]

There is the precedent of releasing a programme risk register connected with the third runway at Heathrow, but the principle of the Freedom of Information Act is that each case is different—every risk register is different. The reason why this case is important and exceptional and why the Information Commissioner has, on balance, required the Government to disclose rather than withhold the risk register is that the Government’s health reforms are the biggest ever reorganisation in NHS history; that the legislation is the longest in NHS history; and that it has been introduced at a time of unprecedented financial pressure.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between John Healey and George Hollingbery

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery]

Some persuasive points have been made in the debate so far and I urge the Government to take them on board. However, I also find the Minister persuasive and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

I wish to speak briefly about a funding issue that is not strictly related to the amendments. I hope that you will allow me to stray slightly off the selection list, Mr Crausby, on the basis that we are unlikely to have a stand part debate. I wish to talk briefly about parish councils. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) talked about horizontal and vertical integration, but I want to go downwards to look at parish councils and where their funding comes from.

At the moment, certainly in my constituency of Meon Valley, several parish councils take in council tax—or rather in precept—pretty much the same as the district council. As far as I can see from the Bill and the consultation on the Bill, there is no provision to pay any of the grant for reducing council tax to parish councils. There is mention of district councils, first-tier councils and precepting authorities such as fire authorities and the police, but as far as I can see there are no arrangements to compensate councils at parish council level for moneys they might forgo because people require council tax benefit. It seems to me that this issue needs to be dealt with.

In my area, Bishop’s Waltham and Denmead parish councils would rely entirely on the beneficence and good nature of the city council to fund their activities if they were not directly grant-aided. I would love to hear the Minister’s thoughts.

[John Healey]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby.

I rise to support the amendments and new clause in the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) and my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Warrington North (Helen Jones). The problem, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich hits on directly in his amendment 79, is that council tax reduction schemes will be undermined from the start by the 10% funding cut and the constraints that the Government are putting in place to compensate for the problem that it will create.

Throughout the part of the Bill dealing with council tax, we consistently see hallmarks of the scheme that run contrary to the Government’s declared aims. It shows a lack of true localism and a transfer of considerable financial risk from central Government to local government, which promises to have a severe impact on support for many current recipients of council tax benefit. The Bill also sets out an unrealistically and unfeasibly tight time scale.

The Secretary of State is more sophisticated than the image and manner that he often cultivates would suggest, but his politics on this matter are brutal and brutish. In my view, the intention is simply to transfer to local authorities the financial risk of the increasing cost of support for council tax costs. The Government want to get local authorities to take the blame for the cuts being imposed by central Government.

Financial risk is crucial for any local authority when it considers the future. Authorities are being asked to take on the new risk without the flexibility to allow them to discharge the responsibilities that they are taking on fairly, effectively or appropriately for their area. Whether the 10% cut leads to pressure on councils’ funding, pressure for them to find cash from other sources or greater cuts for those who are not protected will depend on how the cut is distributed across local authorities, local decisions on the design of the scheme, the make-up of the population within an authority’s area, the proportion of people who are protected by central Government and the degree to which the move from a council tax benefit to a council tax discount encourages take-up among people who are already entitled to support but do not claim it.

Central Government would not make this move if it affected themselves. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North said, they are transferring what is currently annually managed expenditure—the current costs of the council tax benefit scheme are driven by factors that are not under the control of councils—to funding that is covered by the local government departmental expenditure limit. That will put an unrealistic and unfair funding noose around the neck of local government, because the year one base level will involve a 10% cut. My fear is that what could and should be a good move for local government and the people it serves—a locally designed council tax support scheme—is damaged and discredited before it starts by the design of the scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is making a persuasive case, which is consistent with pooling principles elsewhere in the Bill, and I hope he makes some headway with Ministers. Does he not agree that, with only four minutes left when we started this group of amendments, only the third of 10 on the selection paper, there are some important issues that we have not reached, and that if they are to be aired we will have to return to them on Report?

[George Hollingbery]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, in which he makes a reasonable point. However, if I may, I shall continue to develop my theme a little further.

I believe we would achieve a commonality of expectation across a pooled area, such that people could begin to understand what they would get from a council tax rebate scheme. Simply put, we would avoid the strange situations where streets are split in such a way that there is one expectation of the scheme on one side of the street and a different expectation on the other. The Bill makes no mention of such schemes, but chapter 3 of the Government’s response to the consultation on localising support covers the issue, and it makes the case that such schemes are possible under existing powers. It would be useful if the Minister briefly outlined his thoughts on how that would work, and which existing powers might allow local authorities to draw up schemes—assuming, of course, that he will have the time to do so, which is unlikely.

Even if legislation allows such schemes to be put together, it might be useful for there to be a standard, approved scheme, produced by Government, to reduce cost still further.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between John Healey and George Hollingbery

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery]

I am in the Committee as much to learn as to speak to the amendments and would welcome a refresher. The right hon. Gentleman makes the case that there is no accounting of need in the future funding system. My reading of the Bill is that there is. He can argue that the reset period is too long, but there is a reset period—of 10 years—and therefore, need will be reassessed. Likewise, there is a safety net, such that if the business rate increase in a certain area goes a certain amount below the retail prices index, the Government will intervene. Is that not the same as a needs assessment?

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is right—there will be resets—but we do not know after what period or on what basis, so there is no guarantee that the accounting of need in the current system, which will be frozen at the point when the new system starts, will be reflected in a formula for, assessment of, or decisions on resetting. He might want to pursue that point with his hon. Friend the Minister.