Lord Keen of Elie (Con)

My Lords, the amendments in this group share a common desire to see the head of a public authority take greater responsibility for their organisation’s compliance with the duty of candour. Amendments 8 and 25 would therefore have the effect of making the head of a public authority responsible for the compliance of their public authority and, as a consequence, guilty of an offence where the public authority failed to comply with the duty of candour. There is a balance to be struck here. Of course, those responsible for a failure to comply with the duty of candour must be held responsible. But that desire for accountability ought not to result in dedicated public servants, who have taken all reasonable steps to ensure their organisation complies with the duty of candour, being criminalised. There is a further point that should be considered here. What would an extremely tightly drawn responsibility to ensure compliance do to the effective recruitment of senior public officials? A candidate for a role as head of a public authority might well see the risk of being prosecuted under this stricter responsibility as a barrier to taking on any such role. Have the Government addressed the impact of that risk if such an amendment as that proposed here was to proceed? I do not question for a moment the well-meant intentions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Brinton, in bringing forward these amendments, but there are practical issues which Ministers would have to consider very carefully before placing any tighter definition of responsibility on the heads of public authorities.