Orders of the Day — Electricity Generation and Transmission (Inquiries)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:57 am on 9 March 1988.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr John Garrett Mr John Garrett , Norwich South 1:57, 9 March 1988

I beg to move, That the Electricity Generating Stations and Overhead Lines (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1987 (S.I. 1987, No. 2182), dated 16th December 1987, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th December, be revoked. Even at this late hour we are pleased to have the opportunity to debate the rules and we are also pleased to see that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy has managed to find time in his busy schedule to join us; at one time we thought that he had gone missing. He will now know that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments drew attention in its 16th report to the defective drafting of this instrument. I shall not rehearse the points that the Committee made. There were two substantial elements in the observations of defective drafting and no doubt the Under-Secretary will wish to answer the Committee's concerns.

The effect of the rules was summarised in paragraph 5 of the first report of the Select Committee on Energy of 3 February: All of these changes tighten procedure in a way which enhances the position of the CEGB and the Area Boards…Although the Government consulted widely, it seems that it has paid particular attention to the arguments from what might be described as the establishment side. In a brief but useful report, the Select Committee drew attention to a number of features of the rules that it saw as causes for concern. We see them as raising a number of issues of public policy, including citizens' rights, secrecy and the democratic right to know what powerful and dangerous bodies are doing. In a short debate, these issues can receive only a brief hearing. British Governments arc notoriously secretive and a citizen's right to challenge the activities of, for example, the nuclear power industry is already loaded in favour of large organisations and against the objector. We consider that the rules are evidence of more loading on the wrong side of the balance.

The debate gives us the opportunity to raise a number of important issues for the Minister to answer. First, we would like the Minister to explain the manner of the introduction of the rules. As the Select Committee on Energy said, the 1986 consultation paper dealt with rules for inquiries under the Town and Country Planning Acts. Yet no comparable rules have been produced by the Department of the Environment or the Department of Transport. It is said that the Department of Energy has been rather more precipitate, and we do not have to look very far for the reason.

In August, 1987, the CEGB applied for consent to build a pressurised water reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset. On 16 December the new rules were produced, and they were laid on 18 December. On 17 December the Government announced the public inquiry into the Hinkley Point power station. The Select Committee on Energy stated: It can hardly he a coincidence that the rules were made the day before the inquiry was announced. On 22 January, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy announced that an application had been made to divert transmission line entries to Hinkley Point. The local planning authority objected and said that an inquiry must be held under the rules. The remarkably abbreviated timetable did not give the Select Committee time to take oral evidence. Why not? Why the rush? In his commentary on the Select Committee's report of 6 February the energy correspondent of The Guardian observed: The new rules were laid before Parliament two days before the Christmas recess at a time when the House was winding down. There was no press release from the Department of Energy and their existence was first reported in the national press by The Guardian on January 14, the day they came into effect. The headline that appeared in The Times read: Guidance to reactor inquiry inspector is rigged, say MPs. It is clear that the rules were rushed out to limit the objections to the proposed Hinkley Point development. This view is confirmed by an analysis of the changes proposed in the new rules from the existing rules of 1981. The purpose of the changes is to increase the power of the Secretary of State to limit the time taken by pre-inquiry procedures and to increase the inspector's power to require information in advance of the inquiry. They are designed also to confine the evidence that may be presented at the inquiry.

There appear to be nine new provisions in the rules, and no fewer than seven of them have the effect of limiting the effectiveness of objectors. Clause 5(6) constrains the pre-inquiry meeting to within 16 weeks of notification of the local planning authority and potential appellants and objectors. Clause 6(2) allows the inspector to confine evidence to the inquiry to matters set out in the statement of case made by the applicant. It changes the serving of a statement from six weeks before the inquiry to six weeks after the notice of intent. This will disadvantage objectors. Objectors will have only four weeks to serve their statement of case on the Secretary of State.

Clause 10(1) governs the date of the inquiry and introduces yet another new time constraint. Clause 10(3) alters established planning practice by changing 42 days' notice of the inquiry to 28 days when all other inquiries are subject to 42 days' notice. The Select Committee on Energy referred to this provision as "most striking". Clause 13(3) obliges witnesses at an inquiry to set out their case three weeks before the inquiry. Clause 14(4) is a new provision that gives additional powers to the inspector to restrict evidence and cross-examination that he considers irrelevant or repetitious.

We have seven new provisions that are all aimed at limiting the scope of objections to nuclear power stations and similar developments. Perhaps the Minister will explain the justification for all these restrictions. What problem are they intended to overcome? I can answer that question. They are intended to overcome the Sizewell problem, the inquiry that lasted two and a quarter years. But, as I shall show briefly, there were many features of Sizewell which were unique.

A second area of concern for us is secrecy. That again was usefully discussed by the Energy Committee. The Committee was supplied by the Department of Energy with extracts from the Department of the Environment's planning inspectors' handbook which gives guidance to inspectors on the procedure of inquiries, with useful definitions of such terms as "irrelevant", "repetitious", "contrary to the public interest" and "disruptive manner" as applied to the behaviour of people who attend inquiries.

The Committee was asked to treat the procedural guidance as confidential. The Committee observed at paragraph 2: We can see no good reason why this part of the handbook should not be in the public domain. The Energy Committee went further: We recommend at least that these extracts should be made available to any interested party. If this does not happen there will always be the natural suspicion that 'contrary to the public interest,' for example, is equated with 'contrary to the Government's interest'. Why is there to be no public right to know what is contrary to the public interest? Surely there must be considerable public interest in knowing what is contrary to the public interest, and such knowledge would influence the behaviour of those making objections. Why is the definition of conduct in a disruptive manner not a matter of public guidance? What good is served by secrecy on such trivial matters? Such information would be helpful to participants in inquiries. Secrecy about them is petty regulation at its worst. I would like the Minister to undertake to make the inspectors' guidelines available to the Hinkley Point inquiry. Will he also issue the code of practice for the pre-inquiry stage?

Clearly there are justifiable concerns about the length and cost of major public inquiries. The Government's objective, stated in their consultation document, is that inquiries should he as efficient and effective as possible, while not in any way impairing the fairness and impartiality of the proceedings, or the ability of the participants to make representations which are relevant to the decision". The Energy Committee commented: This is an objective of which the Committee broadly approves: we have no wish to see the Sizewell marathon run again. However, the construction of a power station, and especially a nuclear power station, raises local and national environmental, economic and safety concerns. There must be an opportunity for these concerns to be aired and assessed. That is the Opposition's position in agreeing with the views of the Energy Committee.

Sizewell was exceptionally protracted, at 340 days, for a number of reasons which are unlikely to recur at an inquiry into Hinkley Point, for example. The Sizewell inquiry was the first on a nuclear power station in Britain which gave detailed consideration to safety. The applicant, the CEGB, appeared to be inadequately prepared, to put it mildly. The fifth report from the Select Committee on the Environment in July 1986 pointed out at paragraph 152 that the nuclear installations inspectorate promised that a full safety assessment of the pressurised water reactor project at Sizewell would be available before the inquiry began. In the event that did not happen. The nuclear installations inspectorate blamed the CEGB, whose pre-construction safety report was 10 months late. I believe that it arrived after the end of the inquiry.

There were universal complaints about the unsatisfactory quality and presentation of much of the CEGB's data on safety matters. The CEGB took 32 days to read its opening statement. There were 130 days of the inquiry spent on safety, of which only 19 were taken up by the objectors. The Sizewell inquiry ranged over the issue of advanced gas-cooled reactors against PWR comparisons, thanks to the diligence of my distinguished constituent, Mr. Round, formerly deputy chief engineer of the Eastern electricity board.

The Sizewell inquiry examined fuel policy and other national issues. In addition, there were many site-specific issues about access, unemployment, accidents, evacuation and the effects on wildlife habitats of international importance. Sizewell, known as the inquiry to end all inquiries, ventured into unknown territory. It was a learning experience for everyone. Its lessons do not lead automatically to the stifling of objections in the interests of efficiency, as these rules seek to do.

There were many lessons to be learnt from Sizewell, but the Government have drawn only one: the need to shut up objectors. The other lessons included the opaque and confusing adversarial style of the proceedings, the legalisms, the cross-examination, the formality, the ritual, and especially the grossly unbalanced funding arising from the costs of legal representation. Time and again, the weighting in favour of applicants because of the unsustainable costs of representation by objectors is mentioned in connection with Sizewell. Objection, dissent and inquiry are rationed by the purse, on this most crucial issue of the development of nuclear power.

The Select Committee referred to funding at paragraph 8: One other topic which concerns the Committee is the lack of financial assistance for objectors at inquiries. We regret that no such provision is included in these rules. Friends of the Earth spent £120,000 on its Sizewell case from donations and fund-raising. It could afford to attend for five weeks of the two and quarter years for which the inquiry lasted. The Council for the Protection of Rural England had to raise £70,000 through public appeal. The Town and Country Planning Association could not afford to be legally represented, and said that it simply could not monitor the additional evidence presented during the inquiry.

A study by Jennifer Armstrong, published by the Town and Country Planning Association, concluded: Lack of funding for one halt of the argument is one of the chief reasons for the low level of confidence in this part of the decision-making process … An independent fund should be established, administered by trustees, to which voluntary bodies seeking to take part in the inquiry may apply for financial aid. This would exclude aid for legal representation… The size of the fund would depend on the scale, complexity, location etc. of the inquiry. The removal of legal representation would substantially reduce the amount of money needed to promote a far fairer inquiry. The sums of money for which aid might be available are easily verifiable and no organisational or administrative problems are anticipated. This is clearly one of the key recommendations in the establishing of a fairer inquiry system. The fifth report of the Select Committee on the Environment made much the same recommendation, but in their response the Government refused to consider the idea of funding third parties because it would be more likely to make major inquiries run even longer. We return continually to the Government's proposition that an inquiry is effective only if objections are abbreviated and objectors stifled.

At the forthcoming Hinkley Point inquiry, we shall see whether the CEGB shelters behind the "contrary to public interest" rule. The local authorities are already worried that the CEGB has been unwilling to discuss its application openly, and the fear is that the CEGB will use the public interest as a device to avoid proper examination of its reasons for selecting Hinkley Point as the site of another PWR station. We fear that the rules are meant to restrict objection. As the Select Committee on Energy said, Ministers should assure the House and country that all participants at an inquiry may be able to put their views, irrespective of their financial or political muscle. Funding bona fide objectors would enable them to put a briefer, better-researched and better-organised case.

A public inquiry fulfils an important national role in policy-making. We have no Office of Technology Assessment, as they have in the United States. I notice that many Conservative Members have signed an early-day motion asking for such an office. There is no other forum for evaluating nuclear power generation. Weakening the rights of objectors is shortsighted and stifles genuine public interest and concern about a matter of the greatest national importance.