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Health Bill [HL]

I mentioned earlier that when the Secretary of State makes an order to appoint a trust special administrator, he must lay before Parliament a report stating the reasons for making the order. In the same way, I believe that there is a strong argument for insisting on transparency when the Secretary of State takes a decision in the light of the report that he receives from the trust special administrator. That report will contain a recommendation for certain action to be taken. The Secretary of State will either accept that recommendation or not accept it. In either case, I believe he has a duty to explain his reasons. New Section 65K obliges Secretary of State simply to publish a notice of his decision and lay a copy of the notice before Parliament. I stand to be corrected on this, but I believe that the notice will say nothing of the rationale that lies behind it. Of course, the administrator’s final report will already be in the public domain, as we see from new Section 65I. If the Secretary of State decides to follow the recommendation in that report, he need only cite as his reasons for doing so those which the administrator has himself given. If on the other hand the Secretary of State decides to follow a different course, what then? Are we to fall back on the Freedom of Information Act before being able to discover why? That does not seem satisfactory when one considers what a highly charged decision this will be in political terms. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us why in this part of the Bill there is an apparent lack of transparency in the sense to which I have referred. I beg to move.