Contribution
My Lords, I welcome the Bill and congratulate all campaigners who helped to secure the duty of candour and extend human rights. However, I have several concerns. The Bill imposes a duty of candour only after a formal inquiry, inquest or government-led review has started. Such inquiries are preceded by years of toil, by whistleblowers and concerned citizens, but there is no duty of candour for those stages.
There are numerous examples showing that state officials go to enormous lengths to conceal information and prevent reviews and inquiries. The DWP fought for years to avoid publishing a damning report into Errol Graham, who weighed just four and a half stone when his body was discovered by bailiffs attempting to evict him in 2018. His benefits were wrongly stopped. Subsequently, the DWP conducted a safeguarding review of vulnerable benefit claimants. The Child Poverty Action Group submitted a freedom of information request for a copy of the review. The DWP refused and spent £50,000 on legal fees to prevent this release. Three years after the original FoI request, a tribunal forced the Government to release the information. So can the Minister explain why there is no duty of candour at all stages when officials interact with the public at large?
The Bill invokes the concept of protected information, which for years has been used to avoid accountability. Let me give just one example. In 2006, I began a five and a half-year chase to secure a document relating to the forcible closure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in July 1991. It was the biggest banking fraud of the 20th century. Thousands of people lost their savings. The Government invoked exemptions in the FoI, including national security, to justify denial, even though most of the information they were concealing was already sitting in the US Congress Library. In 2011, three judges unanimously ruled against the Government. The document was not about spy satellites or troop movements; it was about how the Government were covering up the biggest banking fraud and protecting the Middle East royal families. The Government had used BCCI to fund al-Qaeda, murderers, smugglers and sundry in the war in Afghanistan. To this day, there has been no inquiry into the closure of BCCI, and the Bill does not really explain how it will deal with the misuse of this concept of protected information.
Clause 4 of the Bill applies the duty of candour to non-public entities, which could be private entities, including those that provide services to a public authority such as the NHS. The duty will apply to private healthcare providers only if they are providing care under NHS contracts, not otherwise. Why is that? Why is there no duty of candour on giant corporations whose practices affect our daily lives even more than the state?
The Post Office scandal is one of the triggers for the Bill, and I have concerns here about the Government’s candour. On numerous occasions, I have raised issues about the 100 or so prosecutions of postmasters by DWP. On 27 February 2025, the Minister for the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology told this House:
“My noble friend Lord Sikka raised a question about the DWP convictions. I can assure him that the Minister for Transformation is looking into this, a review is being established, and I hope to provide more information about that”.—[Official Report, 27/2/25; col. 1880.]
Nothing has been heard since.
I organise an annual event on 16 December to review progress and issues relating to the scandal. Ahead of last year’s event, I directly contacted No. 10. It arranged a meeting with the Minister for Transformation. That meeting took place on 27 January 2026, and I learned that there has been no review. Indeed, there is no reviewer. None has been appointed. In March 2026, the DWP advertised for a part-time reviewer, possibly working only for 30 days, to do the reviews. In response to a freedom of information request on 22 July 2026, the DWP said that
“the process of appointment is still underway”.
It refused to reveal the exact terms of reference for the reviewer. So, 20 months after the initial statement to this House, there has been no update, no review and no reviewer; no one has been appointed, there are no meetings with survivors or their families. In the spirit of candour, I invite the Minister to investigate this disappointing chain of events and return to this Chamber to explain to the House why for 20 months there has been no candour about what has been going on.