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Health and Social Care Bill

No. Risk registers do not represent a balanced view. They are not a prediction of the future. They set out a worst-case scenario to challenge decision making. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) captured the understanding of what a risk register is very well. The point is that we have looked precisely at the balanced view in the impact assessment, which captures where the risks and the benefits of the Bill lie. However, publication of the risk register, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) made perfectly clear, would prejudice the frankness and integrity of the decision-making processes of government and the Government are opposed to their publication. As I mentioned, we won on appeal in relation to the strategic risk register, but not on the transition risk register. In the absence of the reasons for those decisions by the tribunal, and given the nature of the overlap between the strategic risk register and the transition risk register, I cannot comment further on that, or indeed on what our response will be to the tribunal's decisions.