Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard]

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he can help me with one small issue concerning the risk assessment. If you have a risk assessment, surely it follows that risks have to be assessed. The noble Lord says, “No, they do not have to be assessed; they have to be identified”. Why does he make that distinction? It goes to the essence of the point that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is making. If there is an assessment of risk, surely we are entitled to see it, not to be told merely that certain risks have been identified but, as far as we know, remain unassessed.

[Lord McNally]

Of course, part of the problem is that it is described as a risk assessment by journalists. As I said before, a variety of exercises is carried out by the project development team, using various combinations of some of the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, plucked out—in fact, it was a third source because they came from a leak to a journalist to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to the House. So I ask the House to decide how accurate they are.

Of course, the Opposition cry, “Tell us”, but they went through similar exercises on big projects when they were in government. They realised that this was work in progress and it remained part of the management team’s work-in-progress tools. It is not a document that would give help to anybody in terms of what the noble Lord is talking about as risk. It is not about that kind of thing; it is about looking across the piece to see where the emphasis of work and development has to go.