Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)

My Lords, I welcome the news that the Government have accepted all 58 of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s recommendations—at least, I welcome it in principle, in the same way that the Government have accepted some of the key recommendations in principle. Recommendation 25 asks “that it be made a legal requirement for the Government to maintain a publicly accessible record of recommendations by select committees, coroners and public inquiries together with a description of the steps taken in response”. The Government say they will establish a record on GOV.UK of all recommendations made by public inquiries since 2024, that they will consider making that a legal requirement, and that Ministers will commit to updating Parliament on progress on implementing recommendations. The problem with this is that it is no different from what happens now. In all the inquiries that I have been involved with, we always get updates on GOV.UK, and, frankly, they do not satisfy anyone because they tend to be dry and unintelligible. Ministers come to Parliament to update us, as the Minister is doing now, but there is no mention of the suggestion that the Government need to detail the steps taken in response to recommendations. Instead, the Government talk about the recommendation of the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee to establish a new committee to deliver that accountability. I sat on that committee and the response from the Government to that was, “This is a matter for Parliament”. I am not clear what is different now and where this gets us. If the Minister could explain that to me, I would be very grateful.