Health and Social Care Bill

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 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 Motion 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 Motion.