Memorandum by Professor Robin Grove-White
(PGP 59)
MAJOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS: COMMENTS ON
THE GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSALS FOR NEW PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURES
1. I am Professor of Environment and Society
at Lancaster University, a member of the Government's Agriculture
and Environment Biotechnology Commission, and Board Chair and
Trustee respectively of Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International.
In the period 1972-1988, I gained extensive hands-on experience
of existing UK arrangements for the handling of Large Infrastructure
Projects in the UK, whilst Assistant Secretary and Director (1981-1987)
of the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE). Subsequently,
as co-founder and Director (1991-2001) of Lancaster University's
internationally-recognised social science research centre, the
Centre for the Study of Environmental Change (CSEC), and, since
2000, as Professor of Environment and Society at that university,
1 have led relevant ESRC-funded social research programmes and
written extensively on such matters.
2. It is not hard to sympathise in principle
with the Government's wish to reform present arrangements for
authorising "major infrastructure projects". Particularly
when compared with equivalent processes in other European countries,
there have been several recent examples of "delays"
to such schemes, with public inquiry processes apparently a contributing
factor. However, the reform proposals in the Planning Green paper
and accompanying consultation document, "New Parliamentary
Procedures for Processing Major Infrastructure Projects",
give cause for serious concern—as much for what they do
not say, as for what they do.
3. I comment below on:
— The concept of "major infrastructure
project" (paras 4-7);
— Factors relevant to the claimed "costly"
and "unnecessary" delays to the authorisation of such
projects in the recent past, but which remain unacknowledged in
the consultation paper and associated Ministerial statements (paras
8-18);
— Parliament's present limitations
for the role envisaged (paras 19-23); and
— Potentials for institutional innovation
(paras 24-29).
(a) The concept of "major infrastructure
project"
4. As used in the consultation paper, the
term "major infrastructure project" is loose and vague.
Yet it is envisaged as having potential statutory meaning (para
12). The illustrative list in Annex C offers a range of large
developments, including ports, power stations, motorways, chemical
plants, quarries, and many others—some public, most private;
some national, others regional or sub-regional in significance;
some employing largely familiar technologies, others breaking
new ground. No attempt is made to distinguish projects which might
be judged truly essential to the maintenance of basic life in
modern society—particular transport arteries, for example—from
those which may be in principle more optional. It is simply asserted
that all such projects, as defined by the Secretary of State,
are "essential to our economic future and bring benefits
through better services" (paragraph 4).
5. The corollary is that a new class of
projects—infinitely expandable at a later date (if chemical
plants, why not electronics factories, supermarkets or major housing
developments?)—would be created, to be treated quite differently
from all others handled within the existing development control
system. What is more, these are projects which of their nature
are likely to give rise to an extensive range of issues and concerns—environmental,
social, economic, cultural—in which national, regional
and local dimensions are inextricably intertwined.
6. Others will elaborate more expertly on
these difficulties of definition. But it is important for what
follows below that the central concept on which the consultation
is based is unclear in meaning, and likely to prove contentious
when attempts are made to give it precision—not least because
of perceptions of the potential commercial advantages for individual
corporate promoters of such schemes.
7. Nevertheless, there is scope for re-examination
of the processes for handling nationally important schemes. Such
re-examination, however, should embrace a fuller appreciation
of relevant social and political realities than the consultation
paper displays.
(b) Relevant "delay" factors unacknowledged
in the consultation paper
8. The phenomenon of extended public inquiries
into large development proposals has a longer history than is
mentioned in the documents. In the 1970s and 1980s, a succession
of major projects—individual nuclear power facilities (Thorp
at Windscale (now Sellafield), Sizewell B); reservoirs (Broad
Oak in Kent); motorways (M42, M40, etc); coal mines (Vale of Belvoir);
and the like—became focal points for public discussion,
not only of the local environmental and social impacts of particular
schemes, but also of key framing assumptions on the basis
of which they were being promoted. There being no other politically
meaningful or accessible fora in which to engage with such wider
dimensions and/or alternatives, particular local authorities,
citizens organised as national and local NGOs, and other interests
focussed their efforts on the public inquiries triggered by the
proposals.
9. The more recent lengthy inquiries referred
to by the Secretary or State (Annex A)—Stansted Airport,
Heathrow Terminal 5, Manchester Airport Second Runway and the
East London River Crossing—should be seen as elaborations
of these earlier processes.
10. In seeking less cumbersome and (arguably)
legalistic procedures, both Government and Parliament need to
be aware of important positive dimensions of the ways in
which the present situation developed.
11. In a period of accelerating technological
change, underpinned by sometimes questionable assumptions concerning
the inevitability and beneficence of the resulting transformations,
the ability of citizens to participate in politically meaningful
discussion and evaluation of such processes is highly constrained.
In the 1970s and 1980s, environmental movements emerged in reaction
to some of their more tangible cumulative impacts. In the UK,
these movements—reflected politically in expanding public
support for environmental NGOs—gravitated towards such openings
as appeared available within the law for exploring the resulting
trajectories and their implications.
12. Conventional parliamentary processes
were experienced as ill-adapted to, and the principal political
parties as largely unsympathetic towards, such endeavours. By
contrast, the public inquiry system—with its statutorily-enforced
disposition towards conscientious evaluation of arguments, its
procedural fairness and good will towards citizens of all kinds,
and its groundedness in specific real developments on the ground—came
to exert a strong attraction. Individual schemes became focal
points for discussion and argument about broader policy assumptions
and commitments of which the schemes were expressions. In this
way, important issues unaddressed in other fora inside or outside
government came to be explored. One consequence was that inquiries
into certain kinds of development—of the type with which
the present consultation is concerned—became more protracted
than previously.
13. However, significant public benefits
resulted:
— Deep concerns in a growing body of
the population concerning trajectories of policy development
in environmentally significant domains were debated and clarified
in socially disciplined fora, in terms digestible (potentially
at least) by government. Subsequent events—for example,
the 1990 privatisation of the electricity supply industry, with
its associated confirmation of the uneconomic character of civil
nuclear power investments, contrary to repeated earlier claims
by Ministers; and belated official recognition of the role of
motorways in fostering increases in local traffic growth rather
than the reverse, as asserted previously by the Department of
Transport—vindicated key "policy" critiques advanced
at successive large inquiries over the preceding decades.
— Associated media discussion interacting
with public inquiries in their forensic "theatrical"
roles helped animate public education in dimensions of public
policy which would otherwise have gone unacknowledged.
— Large numbers of citizens participated
actively in arguments about socially and technically complex matters
relevant to energy policy choices, questionable trajectories of
transport policy, trade-offs between economic and environmental
factors and the like, in the process engaging with implications
of contemporary technological possibilities. This happened over
a period when more conventional "representative" mechanisms
of national and local government were revealing serious limitations
in their capacity or inclination to play such roles.
— As a corollary, encouraged by successive
Secretaries of State committed to extensions of public participation,
more open attitudes and practices vis a vis direct citizen involvement
in such matters began to crystallise in Whitehall and the Courts,
thus consolidating (irreversibly, I would argue) new normative
understandings about wider public entitlement to engagement in
emerging environmental trends.
14. At a time of mounting concern in Britain
about public anomie toward politics and public institutions, these
positive dimensions of processes presented in the consultation
paper as demanding simplification to the point of truncation need
respectful attention. But the paper makes no reference to them.
15. Why should this be so? Perhaps they
have been assessed and judged irrelevant by Ministers. If so,
this would sit oddly with the claims made repeatedly throughout
the consultation paper, that the measures will "safeguard
public consultation and involvement", and even "increase"
it—when the truth is that they will reduce it.
16. A second possibility is that changes
over the past decade or so, both within Whitehall and in the ownership
structures of bodies promoting "large infrastructure projects",
have led such democratically healthy dimensions of previous public
involvement to be forgotten. The succession of civil service reforms
in the 1990s—widespread devolution to new executive agencies,
contraction in numbers and roles of departmental officials, new
methodologies of audit and accountability aimed at enhanced efficiency,
and the recent ascription of planning and environmental protection
roles to different departments for the first time since 1970—may
have led to contractions in "institutional memory".
And these effects may have been compounded by a loss of interest
in (or indeed memory of) now-relevant past experience, as a result
of the privatisations of the electricity, nuclear and water supply
industries, and the changed internal cultures and priorities these
have produced.
17. Whatever the explanation, if such neglect
is not corrected and adjustments made, the reforms risk being
counter-productive. Abolishing well-established expectations of
intelligent involvement, without creating appropriate equivalent
mechanisms for testing schemes in a fashion convincing to increasingly
educated and sceptical publics, will simply lead to frustration
and to other, less constructive forms of critique and objection.
In such circumstances, it is not hard to anticipate new patterns
of disquiet, delay and even disorder.
18. In the consultation paper, Parliament's
role is envisaged as the safeguard against this, through its consideration
of public "representations" and its approval of the
principle of individual projects. I consider now whether the conditions
necessary for Parliament to fulfil this role are in place.
(c) Parliament's role
19. Under the government's proposals, Parliament
would have just 60 days in which to consider both the principle
and the site location of an individual project designated by the
Secretary of State, and to approve (or reject) it by Affirmative
Resolution procedures. This would include a 42-day "consultation
period" -though Parliament would not necessarily receive
the putative developer's "Statement of the wider economic
and other benefits" until 21 of the 42 days had elapsed.
The ways in which Parliament would handle the proposals and any
associated "public representations" on them is left
to Parliament itself—for example, whether or not there should
be, within the 60 days, specially convened committee hearings.
At the end of the 60 days, assuming an Affirmative Resolution,
the scheme in question would be the subject of a conventional
local planning inquiry, limited to matters of detail only. In
this way, it is suggested, "the proposed new Parliamentary
procedures will help speed up the decision-making process on major
infrastructure projects by saving inquiry time later".
20. Such a formula seems unlikely to command
public confidence. Recent experience—whether analysed by
specialist commentators, or derived from personal experience—points
to Parliament's present acute limitations. The 2001 report of
the Hansard Society, "The Challenge for Parliament: Making
Government Accountable" is unequivocal: Parliament "has
failed to adapt to the challenges it faces" at a time when
fresh forms of accountability from non-parliamentary institutions—NGOs
and pressure groups, regulators of privatised industries, the
media, etc—have been gaining countervailing authority. "Levels
of confidence in politics are low and declining", and public
respect for Parliament specifically has been weakening. The continuing,
even intensifying, dominance of the executive in the control of
parliamentary business and decisions has been compounding this
attrition.
21. Even Parliament's specialist tools for
holding government to account—notably Select Committees—are
acknowledged by the Hansard Society and others to have serious
shortcomings, however conscientious and well-focused individual
inquiries may be. Their limitations—particularly relevant
in the present context—include small staffs, acute variability
of coverage and of quality of scrutiny in particular fields, limits
of time and resources, and lack of independence from majority
party (ie executive) influence. My own personal experience, both
as an expert witness before House of Commons committees, and as
an occasional Specialist Adviser to House of Lords committees,
confirms that the quality of engagement and analytical sophistication
of parliamentary committees is highly variable.
22. In the likely circumstances of a controversial
"major infrastructure project", the role envisaged for
Parliament under the Government's proposals seems likely to strain
Parliament's capabilities to their limits—indeed probably
beyond them. Given the Government's apparent determination to
constrain active public involvement in issues of principle surrounding
individual schemes, the associated parliamentary procedures would
be seen as structurally biased towards the interests of developers
at the expense of those of citizens. In today's climate, against
the background of accumulated experience and expectations outlined
earlier in this submission, these limitations would be likely
to result in frustration and anger. History suggests that in such
circumstances, spectres of legal challenge (under common law or
the new human rights legislation), public protest, civil disobedience,
and the like will tend to present themselves.
23. In short, it seems unlikely that Parliament,
as at present constituted, would be able to command the authority
envisaged in the consultation paper for giving public legitimacy
to the principle or individual siting of schemes subject to the
new measures.
(d) Potentials for Institutional Innovation
24. The Government's proposals for new ways
of handling the principles and location of "large infrastructure
schemes" are radical. Alternatives to them may have to be
equally radical.
25. If well-established expectations of
public involvement within the public inquiry framework are to
be denied, then other ways of generating legitimacy for the principle
of such schemes, when and if these are appropriate, will have
to be created. This implies an urgent need to develop new mechanisms—beyond
the issuing of "national policy statements"—for
authentic discussion and debate around the policy trajectories
of which such schemes are expressions, aimed at generating a greater
degree of consensus around the need, or otherwise, for individual
schemes. This has implications for Parliament as well as for the
executive.
26. What forms might such innovation take?
There may be clues in the current discussions surrounding contentious
issues of science and technology, precipitated by the succession
of crises of government authority on matters such as BSE and Genetically
Modified crops. The implications of these crises, and the need
for active new institutionalised forms of interaction between
"experts" and citizens on the ever-wider issues bearing
on future scientific and technological innovation, have been highlighted
in a number of recent studies, including the 21st Report of the
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, "Setting Environmental
Standards" (1998, Cm 4053) and the "Science and Society"
report (2000, HL Paper 38) of the House of Lords Science and Technology
Committee.
27. An initial discussion of the range of
mechanisms now being explored for advancing such interactions—programmes
involving deliberative mechanisms such as consensus conferences,
citizens juries, standing panels, focus groups, and the like—exists
in the March 2001 report of the Parliamentary Office on Science
and Technology (POST), "Open Channels: Public Dialogue in
Science and Technology". Bodies as varied as the Foods Standards
Agency, the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission,
the Environment Agency, Nirex, local authorities, and a variety
of health trusts are now experimenting with these and other methods
in the development of their own policies and 'outside' relationships—a
burgeoning body of experience now being monitored and documented
by social scientists and others. The Regional level of government
may well constitute a further (as yet largely untested) node for
such innovations.
28. Clearly, there are limitations as well
as strengths to these processes as they stand currently. But collectively
they constitute a fresh field of serious UK experiment and innovation
aimed at harnessing the perspectives and energies of citizens,
of potential relevance to the present proposals. Though unlikely
in themselves to provide substitutes for procedures and rights
underpinned by statute, such initiatives, properly considered,
may offer pointers to ways in which new forms of democratic involvement
and social intelligence might be nourished, to inform both departmental
and parliamentary thinking about issues and dilemmas of the kind
the present consultation paper is seeking to address.
29. The POST report has called for the establishment
of a "National Learning Resource" aimed at fostering
exchanges of experience in the use of such mechanisms, and energetic
reflection upon the implications of that experience. The establishment
of such a Resource, and the integration of its reflections with
parallel thinking by bodies such as the Hansard Society, the UCL
Constitution Unit, the Study of Parliament Group and others, should
be given a high priority by government. It could be developed
as a new piece of strategically useful machinery for Parliament.
And proposals to emerge from it could be designed to go with the
spirit of the parliamentary reforms now being fostered by the
Leader of the House. More specifically, they could also ensure
much-needed integration of the spirit of "sustainable development"
into Parliament's procedures for the handling of new infrastructure
proposals.
CONCLUSIONS
30. To summarise, the potential challenges
implied by the Government's proposals—to Parliament's future
legitimacy, as much as to Ministers' capacity to be able to sustain
an adequate national infrastructure—are such as to require
fresh thinking reaching well beyond the issues and options touched
on in the consultation paper.
31. The present proposals are unsatisfactory
as they stand, because:
— they rest on loose and questionable
assumptions about what could be said to constitute a "major
infrastructure project";
— they fail to recognise and give weight
to important democratic merits of the sophisticated public involvement
which helped shape the character of the inquiry processes Ministers
now wish to limit;
— they rely on unrealistic expectations
of Parliament's authority and capacities in present circumstances;
and
— they are insufficiently ambitious
in the approach to potential new processes for citizen involvement
around future infrastructure issues.
32. The issues addressed in the consultation
paper constitute a call to creative institutional innovation.
This submission has sought to highlight some key issues which
that innovation should embrace.
March 2002
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