Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 16
16
Rejected
Publish the ACMD’s 2016 report or provide a confidential copy within one month.
Recommendation
We, once again, request that the Home Office publish the ACMD’s 2016 report. At the very least, we request that the Home Office provide us with a confidential copy of the document within one month of receiving this report. Failing that, the Government must explain in its response to this Report why this ACMD paper, and no other, deserves to be withheld from public view. (Paragraph 55) The 10-Year Drugs Strategy
Government Response Summary
The government explicitly rejects the request to publish the 2016 ACMD report or provide a confidential copy, explaining that the paper was marked confidential by the ACMD itself and its publication would be inappropriate.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The Government will not publish the 2016 ACMD paper, and respectfully declines to provide the Committee with a confidential copy. According to government guidance, scientific advisory committees are expected to publish final advice where the Chair and members deem it appropriate. Where final advice is not published, the Committee should record the reasons for this. The Home Office received a paper from the ACMD in 2016, which was marked by the ACMD as confidential. The ACMD is independent, and it would not be appropriate or proper for the Home Office to publish an ACMD paper which the ACMD did not intend for publication. Any formal reports from the ACMD are and will continue to be published online, together with any government response to that advice when it is made.