Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

This is not about the merits of the Bill but about a delay of, in my estimate, three weeks. Would the Minister please—there are no business managers alongside him on the Bench at the moment—put to us his estimate, if this amendment were passed, of the last possible date when Third Reading would have to be considered in order for the Bill to have the opportunity to become law during this Session? My estimate is three weeks but no doubt the Government have a more specific one. When he has given us that estimate, will he explain what damage would be done to the parliamentary procedures of this House or, far more importantly, to the health service should the amendment be carried? That is all that we have to consider today. If he gave us an answer to that question, that would enable those of us who intend to vote for the Motion, as I certainly do, a lot more justification for doing so on the basis of how he replied.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I would like to add to the question well raised by the previous speaker and ask the Minister to go one step further. I reread the wording of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, and I am not entirely clear what the effect would be if, when the Tribunal’s detailed reasons were made available, the Government then decided to appeal that decision. Would that put an end to the noble Lord’s attempt to have the risk register available before we finalise the Bill or would it mean, as I think from the wording that it would, that the matter was at an end and we would proceed to Third Reading?

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and my noble friend Lord Wilson of Dinton in advising the House not to support the Amendment to the Motion. I do not want to go into any more detail on the risk registers. They need to be comprehensive and candid; if there is a risk of publishing them, the compilers will be less likely to make them as comprehensive and candid as they need to be in order to be of value. When the Information Commissioner suggests that, even if this is published, people will be equally comprehensive and candid in future, I am afraid that I think he is guilty of wishful thinking.

There is a process with this risk register. I understand that we have not yet seen the reasons for the decision reached by the Tribunal. When that is known, the Government have the right to appeal. I hope that they exercise it because the considerations against publication, as they have been stated more than once today, are very cogent. That process is likely to take a great deal longer than the three weeks that the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, gives the Bill. The only sensible course now is to disentangle the business of the risk register and the business of passing the Bill, to let the Bill go forward and not to support the Amendment to the Motion.