Your editorial (14 March) confuses the ongoing debate about publication of the risk register linked to the government's reorganisation of the NHS. The information tribunal has ruled that the Department of Health should publish its "transition" risk register, on the specific risks arising from NHS restructuring, but not the "strategic" risk register, which covers a range of ongoing risks outside of the government's direct control including the worst-case scenarios of a new pandemic or terrorist attack.
In failing to make the distinction between the two, you let ministers off the hook. The transition risk register deals not with the unthinkable, which of course raises difficult presentational challenges, but the very real and predictable risks arising from ministers' own policy choices. If ministers are asking for parliament's approval to implement their decisions, they should at very least be required to provide MPs and peers with all relevant information on the risks of doing so. It was ludicrous to hear Paddy Ashdown saying that we don't need to publish the document now – if not now, when? The tribunal ruled quickly for the precise reason of informing the parliamentary debate set to finish on Tuesday.
Labour has argued from the outset that the government made a catastrophic error of judgment in choosing to reorganise the NHS at this time of unprecedented financial challenge. They have allowed existing NHS structures to disintegrate before new ones are in place, leading to a loss of grip and focus at local level. What is not in doubt is the fact that they have subjected the NHS to additional risk. What they continue to conceal from the public and parliament – in defiance of rulings from the information commissioner and the information tribunal – is the precise nature and scale of those risks.
People care passionately about the NHS. They have a right to know the full implications of the government's proposed reorganisation. Ministers are insulting parliament by expecting it to endorse changes of this magnitude to the country's best-loved institution while withholding information that could change the way MPs and peers vote. Ministers are stringing out their response to the tribunal so they can ram their bill through parliament without publishing.
Today, peers have a final opportunity to correct this outrageous state of affairs. By supporting Lord Owen's call to delay the bill, peers will be upholding two crucial points of principle: parliament's right to know; and the government's responsibility to respect the law.
Andy Burnham MP
Shadow secretary of state for health