NHS Risk Register

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

When the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister he and his colleagues never published such information, so I will not take any lessons on that. As a Treasury Minister, he refused to disclose a Treasury risk register.

Let me explain what risk registers are for, because an hon. Lady on the Opposition Benches keeps chuntering about them. A high-level risk register, such as those being considered by the tribunal on 5 and 6 March, is a continuously reviewed and updated document that enables officials, advisers and Ministers to identify and analyse the risks of, and to, particular policies. Risk registers present a snapshot of the possible risks involved at any one time. Their purpose is to record all risks, however outlandish or unlikely, both real and potential, and to record the mitigating actions that can ensure that such risks do not become reality.

For such a register to be effective and for it to serve the public interest, those charged with compiling it must be as forthright as possible in their views. The language of risk registers must be forceful and direct. That is essential for their operation, to enable Ministers and officials fully to appreciate those risks and to take the steps to mitigate them, or to redesign policy to avoid them.

It is important to note that such high-level risk registers are different to the risk registers of the organisations from which the shadow Secretary of State quoted, such as the risk registers of strategic health authorities. The latter concern operational matters and not matters of developing and designing policy, and they are written with publication in mind—they are intended to be published. By contrast, there are very clear reasons why Departments—under not just this Government, but previous ones—do not publish their high-level risk registers while they are still active and while policy development is ongoing.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

The Justice Committee is currently inquiring into the workings of the Freedom of Information Act. It must identify where the proper boundary lines should fall to protect the ability of civil servants to advise Ministers, but that must be set in the context of legislation that the Government have committed themselves to supporting, and which the previous Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has now publicly disowned.