Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Falconer of Thoroton Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Murphy]

That is not the implication of my remarks at all. The Information Commissioner has not released his full judgment and will not release his reasons for some time, so we cannot debate that.

This comes back to what my noble friends Lord Birt and Lord Wilson and the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said about what these risk registers contain. I know very well because I have written risk registers for the National Health Service. I have sat down with my chief executive, and with my chairman when I was a chief executive, and we have written these things for public consumption. The Cabinet Office has a very nice risk register, but it is for public consumption; it is not to do with the private discussions between senior civil servants or advisers. I have worked as an adviser at the Department of Health, and this is not the kind of thing that comes up in conversations between Ministers where you want to be really frank.

We now have an out of date, almost two years’ old risk register that will not be relevant to the passage of the Bill. We have assessed the detailed risks of the Bill better in this House than in any other forum I can imagine. Those who have sat through the progress of the Bill, line by line and word by word, know very well that we have improved it. I am sure there are areas that many of us would still like addressed, but for all kinds of reasons we are not able to do so. I beg the House not to delay the Bill. If we delay it further we will have no guarantee that we will be able to get it through before Prorogation. I see this simply as a ruse not to implement these polices. We would gravely let down the National Health Service by not implementing them, and I urge noble Lords not to support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Owen.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Owen. I understand that he is saying, “Let us look at the reasons for saying that the risk register should be made public”. He understands that it must be done before Prorogation, so I am not entirely clear why the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, is saying that this will cause delay. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, says—you do need to strike a balance between appropriate confidentiality in relation to what the Government do and the need for openness.

The Freedom of Information Act was passed so that it would not be government Ministers or civil servants who determined what was kept confidential but an independent tribunal. We have reached the position on this issue at which Professor Angel, who is regarded as probably the best chair of an information tribunal that there is, has struck the balance. Take it from me that Professor Angel very well understands the need for proper confidentiality in relation to government. He and his tribunal are not remotely people who would make everything public. They well understand that lots of government matters have to be kept under wraps for the purpose of good government. If a tribunal chaired by Professor Angel said that we should see this, and he reached that conclusion on the basis not of politics but of good government, my instincts are that we should listen more to what he said than noble Lords around this House who have an interest in trying to rush the Bill through. I am struck by the modesty of the amendment by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Owen. It says that we should see what Professor Angel said before we reach a conclusion. I strongly urge the House to take that course.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I have sat for many hours with my noble friend Lord Owen on this Bill. We both have an appreciation of the health service that came from our parents. My noble friend’s father was a medical practitioner while my mother and grandmother spoke of how things were before the National Health Service came into being. I have no desire to do any disservice to the health service. In fact, in the amendments put before this House, I voted contrary to the wishes of the Government.

Yet, on this matter, there is a point that information passed between civil servants and their Ministers should be kept confidential. The argument has been put about the Information Commissioner. Is anyone suggesting that the Information Commissioner is doing something wrong? The answer is no. The Information Commissioner works from a piece of legislation that both our Houses gave him. That basically says that if information is in data—in written form—then it should be made public. What will now happen is that when Ministers go to get advice, they will not get written advice. Ministers and other high officers of state are entitled to advice from their civil servants or officials. They get confidential advice. Freedom of information does not cover all information, only written information. No one can force a Minister or any other officeholder to hand over information given orally. That is exactly what will happen now: information will be given orally. That is not helpful to the quality that we look for. When a civil servant or officer puts something down in a document, they give a lot of thought to it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, said, there are several people behind that document when it is published. It is there for the Minister or officer to look at. On this matter, I cannot support my noble friend Lord Owen. I support the Government.

There was a previous debate on this matter. It was stated that the previous Labour Government should give the risk register for, I think, the third runway at Heathrow. Justine Greening was the MP who pushed for that. First, the Government did not hand over that information in a matter of minutes. It took a long time for them to hand it over. Secondly, this was leading up to a general election where parliamentary incumbents around Heathrow and parliamentary candidates in the Labour Party were deeply worried about that risk register.

I have been very supportive of my friends in the Labour Party, and they know that. In fact, I have a better voting record with the Labour Party than some of its card-carrying members. However, they should ask themselves when the road to Damascus came about. It did not come about two years ago. Every time I granted an Urgent Question to a Minister or to the House, there was a Minister complaining that they did not want to give information to the House but would rather give it to a television studio.

I have had a great deal of criticism—costly criticism—about going to an appeal, so I know about appeals.