Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
16 MARCH 2009 SIR
MICHAEL PITT
Q20 Sir Paul Beresford: What about
wind farms and nuclear power stations? Do you think you need some
technical knowledge there? How are you going to fill those gaps?
Sir Michael Pitt: Good point.
I think it is going to be vital that I have a good understanding
of those sorts of applications: I think it is important that the
Commission is not just seen to be dealing with one application
after the other but has a strategic view of what is going on in
the country, how individual applications fit into the much bigger
picture, so I think it is right, and you are right, to draw attention
to the fact that I would need to ensure that I do have that wider
understanding.
Q21 Sir Paul Beresford: Would you
be choosing some of your commissioners to fill those gaps in your
knowledge?
Sir Michael Pitt: I think that
brings us then to a really important issue about who do we want
as commissioners, we are looking at probably up to 35 commissioners.
I am anticipating that I would be involved in that recruitment
process, and clearly we will be looking for commissioners who
have a wide range of knowledge, not just of those sectors like
energy, transport, water and so on but who have a good understanding
of planning law, I think that is going to be vital given the nature
of the IPC, and commissioners who can understand environmental
issues and the social impact of projects. So we are looking for
a wide variety of experts who can be brought together onto panels
for the major applications, and I hope come through with the right
decisions at the end of the day.
Q22 Sir Paul Beresford: You say you
hope to have an opportunity of being able to help appoint the
Commissioners. So you have walked into this job without knowing
whether you can or cannot?
Sir Michael Pitt: No, I am pretty
confident that is going to happen. I am already being told that,
subject to this appointment, I would be involved in the appointment
of the two deputy chairs and the three commissioners, and also
the appointment of the new chief executive.
Sir Paul Beresford: Are you going to
strategically plan or going to take some of these cases yourself?
Chair: Just before we move on to that,
John, did you want to press any more about the appointment of
the commissioners and the deputies?
John Cummings: Not really. I think he
has covered the points I was going to ask.
Chair: Emily?
Q23 Emily Thornberry: Given all the
questions that are being asked about people on high salaries I
think my constituents would expect me to ask whether we think
it can be justified that if you were to get this job you would
be paid the equivalent of nearly a quarter of a million pounds
a year? I do not know how much the deputy commissioners would
get but how much is this Board going to cost the country?
Sir Michael Pitt: Well, to start
with, because I will not be working five days a week but four
days a week, the salary is reduced proportionately. Also, there
is a range of salaries there, so the figure you have quoted is
more optimistic than the actual salary would be in practice.
Q24 Emily Thornberry: It is £184,000,
is it?
Sir Michael Pitt: Absolutely,
it is, indeed. The decision about the level of salary is one that
was obviously taken before I became directly interested in the
job, and I can only assume that there has been benchmarking by
officials and advice to ministers about what level that salary
should be. I do understand that this can be controversial, of
course it can. In my judgment, it feels to me that this is probably
the right sort of salary for a job of this scale.
Q25 Chair: When you were talking
about the different people that you wanted to have on board you
talked about experts in this, that and the other. Do you think
everybody should be a technical expert?
Sir Michael Pitt: No, I do not
think that is going to be possible. I think what we have to do
is look at the full range of commissioners and make sure that
there is a body of expertise amongst individuals within the commissioners,
so that when we are dealing with a particular application we can
handpick the commissioners most suited to that task.
Q26 Sir Paul Beresford: If there
are still gaps, would you be using outside advice?
Sir Michael Pitt: That is included
within the Act and is certainly available to the Commission, and
I suspect if we were doing a one-off, an application that was
not the general business of the IPC, one that perhaps has new
technology that might be quite challenging for the Commission
to deal with, we may want to bring in an adviser who is not a
commissioner but somebody who could be part of the evaluation
process to provide some expert advice on that particular application.
Q27 Sir Paul Beresford: Do you intend,
as I said before, to be strategic or take some of the reins?
Sir Michael Pitt: My view at the
moment is that the important role for the chair is creating a
fit-for-purpose IPC, and I would want to give absolute priority
to ensuring that the Commission is up and running as quickly as
possible and is fully effective in all the different roles that
it has to undertake. I think there are some activities that only
the chair can do, so if it is an issue about how much time is
available then things like, for example, acting as coach and mentor
to the commissioners and supporting them in the difficult decisions
they have to make would be a key role for the chair; liaising
with the outside bodies, stakeholders, again would be a key role
for the chair; sorting out corporate governance of the organisation
and making sure that the board is really effective in running
the Commission again would be key. I suspect that it would be
wrong for the chair to become heavily distracted, spending large
amounts of time dealing with individual applications, especially
if that was at a cost of those other activities I described. I
do not think that rules out the possibility of the chair taking
on individual applications; I just think it is far less important
than those other things I have described.
Q28 Sir Paul Beresford: As I understand
it, a commissioner can run one of the inquiries and then report
back to the Commission?
Sir Michael Pitt: That is right.
There are two basic ways in which this can happen. For the very
big, complicated applications the chair can create a panel, usually
three or five commissioners would be appropriate, and again, coming
back to this point about expertise, you would get the spread of
expertise across those commissioners to deal with that application.
That panel will be able to determine that application but for
the smaller applications there can be just one commissioner sitting
alone taking evidence and coming to a view, but that single commissioner
then has to report to a council of the IPC and the chair, whoever
becomes appointed as chair, then chairs the council with a number
of commissioners to decide finally whether that application is
agreed or not.
Q29 Sir Paul Beresford: What happens
if there is a disagreement between the two tiers?
Sir Michael Pitt: The Council
overrides the individual commissioner.
Q30 Sir Paul Beresford: That could
be interesting!
Sir Michael Pitt: It could be
interesting. Let's hope it does not happen!
Q31 Mr Betts: One might have thought
that really the Secretary of State ought to be making final decisions
on applications of this significance, but you will be there instead
if your appointment goes through, perhaps to take the flak which
politicians are not prepared to take for these major decisions?
Sir Michael Pitt: That may well
turn out to be the case and I think if that is what comes with
the job then that is what comes with the job, but I am quite clear
that the idea of having a commission to take these decisions is
a step in the right direction. I know it is a controversial issue.
I believe the existing arrangements are to a large degree unsatisfactory.
I think it places ministers in a difficult position in that sometimes
they are both the applicant and also the determining minister,
and I am sure that from the public's perception that seems to
be an unusual way of doing things.
Q32 Sir Paul Beresford: It is common
in local government, and it is accepted.
Sir Michael Pitt: Yes, with delegated
powers in local government that can happen as well, but usually
in a council decisions are made by a group of councillors rather
than an individual person, which I think makes things very different
indeed, and, secondly, in councils you can separate those members
dealing with the application side from those dealing with the
decision. I think you have more flexibility in a local authority
situation than you have in the current arrangements with the Secretary
of State or ministers acting in three different capacities.
Q33 Mr Betts: I suppose the cynical
members of the public might say two things. First they might say:
"Well, we know ministers in the end now have removed themselves
from this final bit of the decision-making role in terms of major
planning applications, but they are putting in someone whom they
can really trust to make sure they get the decisions through anyway
on this, someone whom they trust to run Swindon Council to do
the review of the floods, so you are a bit of an institutional
appointment.
Sir Michael Pitt: Well, if they
think they have done that they have made a very bad mistake. I
feel very strongly that the Commission can only function if it
is widely regarded as independent, and if that independence was
thrown into doubt then I think the Commission itself would be
in grave difficulty.
Q34 Mr Betts: You may be personally
independent and feel, as you do, very strongly; nevertheless there
must be a perception, surely, that there is a problem with the
current arrangements for major planning applications in this country
at present, and there was a need to identify what should be done
to deal with that. So your new Commission was established for
the purpose of getting quicker decisions on these major applications
and making sure we get on with the infrastructure; that is your
purpose. So how can the objectors out there in the community who
do not really want something built in their backyard, on their
doorstep, be convinced of your independence in these matters when
you are going to be part of an organisation created to get quicker
decisions and get these applications through?
Sir Michael Pitt: I think we have
to take that question step by step. First of all, the Secretary
of State, or Secretaries of State, still carry out the crucial
role of preparing the National Policy Statements, and those people
who object or feel concerned about national policy have a major
opportunity at that stage to put their point of view and to try
and influence what finally appears in a National Policy Statement.
I would not for one minute want to in any way give an impression
that ministers are losing control of national policy but that
is very much a part of the new legal framework. Once that policy
has been established, however, the case for and/or against an
individual application rests on the analysis of highly complex
evidence, and I think it is probably the job of the chair to try
and convince objectors and the general public that they get a
better outcome if expert people are looking at that evidence,
spending a great deal of time in coming to their conclusions,
and taking into account national policy, but nevertheless making
it quite clear that there can be local circumstances, local disadvantages
to that application, which might well mean that an application
is turned down. So all we can do is try and convince those objectors
that this system is better for them, that they have three different
opportunities along the way to put their case, and that it is
for the Commission to make sure that it is listening carefully
and seen to be listening carefully.
Q35 Mr Betts: And on each individual
application you will make the decision in light of the evidence
and on the basis of the National Policy Statement setting the
policy framework for that, but ultimately in terms of those decisions
do you see any way in which you should be held politically accountable
for what you do on a daily, weekly, yearly basis as a Commission?
Sir Michael Pitt: Well, let us
separate that. Clearly on individual decisions on individual applications
a commission must act independently, and the chair must be seen
to be totally independent, but there are provisions in the Act
for an annual report to be written shortly after the end of the
financial year; that annual report will be laid before Parliament.
I am assuming that select committees and probably this Committee
would want to call me to account, to invite me and the Chief Executive
to speak about the work of the Commission, and also I would expect
that from time to time I would meet the relevant minister to talk
about progress and how well the Commission is doing. But I see
that as something quite separate from individual decisions on
individual applications.
Q36 Mr Betts: But you would not expect,
then, select committees to question you about individual decisions?
Sir Michael Pitt: No. There is
provision for you to do that and I think that, providing that
conversation was taking place at the right time—in other
words outside the six-week period when a decision can be reviewed
under judicial review—and providing we were not re-making
the decisions, you know, going into so much detail, then it would
be quite right for the Chair and the Chief Executive to talk about
individual decisions that have been made and the underlying reasons
as to why that particular decision was an outcome from the IPC.
Q37 Mr Betts: But also presumably
other questions such as how the Commission is dealing with procedural
matters. One of the issues that certainly came up in discussions
on the Bill was a right to cross-examination, for example, whether
that would affect objectors' ability to properly question.
Sir Michael Pitt: Yes, and the
Commission has discretion to allow that to happen now as a result,
but I do take your point very much. It is the processes and procedures
of the Commission which I think should be most open to analysis
and scrutiny, because if we do not get those right we will lay
ourselves open to judicial review, and bearing in mind the sheer
importance and scale of some of the applications that the Commission
will be dealing with there is a very real risk that judicial review
could get in the way, and the Commission must act and behave,
therefore, very carefully indeed.
Q38 Mr Betts: Just in terms of perception,
because these things do have a habit of getting out at some point
even if not now, have you got any history of political activity
or views strongly expressed in any of the key issues which your
Commission is likely to have to deal with in terms of applications
that might then lead somebody to question your independence in
such matters in the future?
Sir Michael Pitt: Absolutely none
at all.
Mr Betts: I must say you have led a very
sheltered life!
Q39 Chair: Are you absolutely tabula
rasa, as they say, as regards political activity, political
views expressed, any view whatsoever on nuclear power, wind farms,
environmental sustainability—what else? You cannot have
been saying much, is my feeling.
Sir Michael Pitt: The question
was directed in relation to political activity, and all I can
say is that if you have been chief executive of a local authority
members expect impartial advice, they do not want to have chief
executives who show any interest at all in a particular political
party, so I can say without hesitation that I am totally agnostic
when it comes to individual political parties. I cannot imagine
I have ever stood on a platform and expressed strong views about
climate change or whatever it might be, so I suspect it would
be very hard for anybody to find any quote which might in any
way embarrass me.
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