Recommendation 16

The Government has still has not given any indication that it will provide the evidence behind the withdrawal of guidance on 13 March. These appeals have been made to three members of the Cabinet, to one further Minister, and to three of the Home Office’s most senior officials. It is unacceptable that the information we requested concerning the decision to withdraw measures for international arrivals on 13 March has not yet been made available to us. The Committee has been reassured time and again that it would receive copies of the advice it had requested. After more than three months of being repeatedly promised this information, it will be difficult for this Committee to accept that there are any grounds why the Government cannot provide it to us; if there were such grounds, it has had ample time and opportunity to explain what these might be. It could at any previous juncture over this period have offered reasons for non-compliance or agreed terms for information to be given privately or with redaction. In such circumstances as these, the Committee could quite reasonably conclude that the advice we have requested simply does not exist.