Infrastructure Planning (Radioactive Waste Geological Disposal Facilities) Order 2015

Debate between Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lord Judd

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, this order is simply to bring GDFs within the nationally significant infrastructure project regime of the Planning Act 2008. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has had to find out the hard way that that Act, brought in by Labour in 2008, has such an anti-democratic flavour, which at the time we feared it would. As he said, the order will remove from local planning authorities and their respective communities the final say in the planning process. I find that extraordinary when we are looking at something that we have never had before. It is not like a road, which can be a nationally significant infrastructure project if the Government choose to designate it as such; we have lots of roads. A railway, such as HS2, might be one. We have not had GDFs before; this is new. That is another reason why it should be subject to the proper rigours of a democratic planning process.

Perhaps one of the best things that the Labour Party did in the previous Government, during the time when it brought in the Planning Act, was in February 2005 when the UK ratified the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, which became known as the Aarhus convention. That is the main thing I want to ask the Minister about today.

I am very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in his place. Back in 2006, I asked him whether any of the provisions in the Aarhus convention had yet to be implemented in the United Kingdom. He confirmed that we had ratified it and that the full lists of what that meant were now available. Those set out the UK’s range of obligations on access to information and public participation. I think that this GDF proposal would fall within Annex I to the Aarhus convention. It would be most helpful if the Minister could make some reference to that in her reply.

Having looked at the Government’s response, which was handed out with these papers today, it is very hard to balance the Government’s statement that they will not proceed without a positive test of public support without thinking that the ultimate test of public support for a planning issue is exactly that the local authorities involved make planning decisions. That is why the system was invented in the way that it was: so that there could be democratic representation and people could have a say. Something as important as this is not only about burying waste in the ground. Bear in mind that it is also about the transport of waste to that facility, which will have an enormous impact.

For all those reasons, I should like the Minister to assure us, for a start, that it complies with the Aarhus convention and, secondly, to consider whether the exceptional nature of GDFs should make them inapplicable to the process envisaged by the 2008 Act.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, as a humble citizen of Cumbria, I was very reassured to hear my noble friend Lord Liddle speaking as powerfully as he did. He certainly reflects widespread feeling within the county. It is sometimes easy to exaggerate but I think that there is almost a breakdown in trust. There is a feeling that the Government have for a long time been absolutely determined to drive through this project in west Cumbria, and that everything will therefore be done to ensure that it happens. Scepticism, to use a milder word, is inevitable if you have a situation in which, under the established rules, the permissions of the local authorities—and very much the county council—were essential if the project were to go ahead. When it turned out that the county council, with its greater strategic responsibilities, was not in favour of the recent attempt to develop further research into the possibilities, the rules of the game were revised so that in further consultations it would not be necessary to involve the county council but other local authorities could be involved. This inevitably leads to doubt.

It is also important to realise that while my noble friend Lord Liddle was absolutely right to emphasise the strategic issues of transport and all the rest—just think of the A66, the Penrith junction with the M6 and the consequences right across to Scotch Corner—this has immense implications for the wider region. That is why the local authority most responsible for the wider region, since this goes well beyond the county, should be closely involved.

I want to raise one other issue that we do not like talking about. The difficulty is that if you raise it, you will be accused of scaremongering. However, there are risks in a development of any kind to do with nuclear energy and nuclear power. We are living in an absolute world of absurdity if we believe that the consequences of anything going seriously wrong would be limited to Cumbria. It would be the whole north-west, to say the very least, and would probably be wider than that. These are issues on which we need a great deal of reassurance. I have not yet heard anything that reassures at the level necessary.

We must also recognise that there is a fundamental contradiction in the approach to governance because, as I understand it, the Government have been insistent that they favour localism—and very much on any project of this kind, because the involvement and approval of the local community has repeatedly been stated as essential. Yet the whole idea of strategic projects of this kind is to cut back and streamline what has been there traditionally and was very hard won: the possibility for local communities to pursue the things that disturb them and their consequences.

I must emphasise an interest here. Apart from being a citizen of Cumbria, I am also a patron of the Friends of the Lake District and a vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks. It seems to me that these issues about which we started talking in relation to Cumbria apply to the country as a whole. I like the idea of localism but I am not the slightest bit persuaded—and I do not believe that I could be persuaded—that issues of strategic significance such as this can be shuffled on to local authorities, with their limited resources, for them ultimately to decide whether or not to go ahead with them.

Although I am by no means an enthusiast for nuclear energy, I accept that a new generation of nuclear energy will be necessary. It seems to me that, by definition, nuclear energy and its development is a national responsibility, and that the consequences of that must be seen as a national responsibility. Therefore, I would like specific assurance from the Minister that at the outset of any such project it will be considered essential to undertake a transparent and convincing national survey to establish the best, most favourable and least dangerous place in which to develop it. When that has been established, then, of course, local involvement becomes crucial.

I make my position clear: I have said all along that I have very strong views on this project. However, I have also said all along that if, at the end of such a national convincing exercise, it became clear to me that the least dangerous place for such a project was west Cumbria, I would put myself 200% behind it and consider how we could make it the safest and least environmentally and scenically damaging project possible. That would be the responsible thing to do. However, we are nowhere near that point. We are being asked to approve the means before we have had the wider strategic assurances—of course, that will add to doubt. My noble friend was right to say that we are not in a position to approve this measure at all.

I hope that the Minister, with whom I have had many consultations on this issue in the past, can now reassure us. I believe that there is widespread anxiety, not only in the county, but certainly in the county as a whole and beyond it. This is my last point, although I could make many more. If I may use the terms in this place, there is, in an authoritative sense, an intellectual dimension to this issue. Many geologists of great distinction are already saying, and have done for some time, that Cumbria is not the place to have a project of this kind because of the situation with subterranean water. There is a feeling that these scientists of distinction have never been given the hearing on the project that they should have had. Some have made their work available at their own expense as they feel so concerned about it and have put it on public record.

We have to face the fact that nuclear waste exists and there is a whole realm of anxieties about its security and the integrity of the facilities that contain it. We are going ahead to the next generation of nuclear power, which will generate more waste, so we have to find a solution—that is the bottom line—for both existing and future waste. When we have found the right place and mobilised public confidence that everything possible has been done to make the project as safe and secure as possible—I do not believe that it will ever be made completely safe for future generations—we can get into that debate. However, we must be reassured that a national survey has been done and that there is a list—preferably prioritised—of the sites that are right and those that are not, and of those that are better and those that are less well suited. That has not happened. The Minister must put us in the picture about this and give us specific reassurances.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lord Judd

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I strongly support and endorse this amendment. We have been reminded that a number of very significant organisations in this country which are working in the front line in the countries concerned feel passionately that this amendment is necessary. I declare an interest as a former director of Oxfam. All my experience during those years at Oxfam and since in my work with similar organisations has underlined the importance of this amendment. Not infrequently I found myself in a situation in which we were being asked to respond to need. In effect, by responding to need we were masking injustice because we were dealing with the consequences of what had happened instead of getting to the roots of what had happened. This seemed in a sense dishonest in that if we were serious about the issues that confronted us, we had to get to the underlying cause that had brought about the lamentable situation.

From that standpoint I reached a very firm conviction during my time at Oxfam and since that very frequently people in the Third World are not primarily asking for handouts or support, they are asking for justice. If they have not got justice, how on earth can they get themselves together to start self-generating progress and the rest because they are burdened by the consequences of what has happened to them as a result of abuse of one kind or another? That is fundamentally wrong. Of course, if people are desperate to start taking their situation forward themselves, we should ensure that that is possible and that they are not artificially and unnecessarily hindered.

I really do not know how a Government who set so much store by their commitment to the overseas aid programme—which is a great credit to them—in saying that it must be ring-fenced in the current economic situation do not see that the logic of that position demands that an amendment of this kind should be accepted. Failing to accept this amendment would be working against the very commitment of the Government. From that standpoint, I applaud the amendment and hope that the Government will feel able to take it seriously, even at this late stage.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 134 in the belief that the Government are quite right, in general, on the principles in this part of the Bill but they are wrong not to have made an exception in this case. These are very modest amendments to allow exceptions to be made.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, mentioned one reason why exceptions need to be made: DfID. This Government are working hard to follow the amount of aid that this country has committed—and I pay tribute to the Opposition. But it is not only DfID. The FCO realises that soft power is very important, and the Department for Business also realises that companies need to be socially responsible. Corporate responsibility has become a very important standard for this country.

This is recognised across almost all of government, and I urge my noble friend and the Ministry of Justice to join the other departments in making sure that companies listed here that have the potential to cause enormous damage—the extractive industries, in particular, whose work is accelerating at an enormous rate, and also agribusiness as commodity prices go up; there are a number of businesses whose turnover and impact in the world is growing day by day at a rate that was quite unimaginable even a decade ago—that needs to be balanced by better access to justice, not worse. It is for that reason that I support these amendments.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lord Judd

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, I rise to move Amendment 31 and to speak to Amendment 34. In doing that, I should also like to say a few words about the government amendments. When I arrived at the House today, there was a message from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asking me to move the amendment and saying that he was “confined to barracks”. I thought, “My goodness, the Whips are getting tough on the other side”. But, in fact, I am sorry to say that the noble Lord is unwell again. I am sure that it would be the wish of the whole House, because of the noble Lord’s commitment on these matters, to send him greetings and God speed for a rapid recovery.

After the profound issues of law and legal institutions that we have been having today, this issue might seem a bit ephemeral. However, I do not believe that it is ephemeral because it is central to the quality of our society and those things that make Britain a place worth living in. Before I speak to Amendments 31 and 34, I should like to put on record how much many of us appreciate the moves made by the Government in their amendments to remove some of the anxieties which were surrounding the future of the parks. No one could be in any doubt that we have Ministers, whatever our profound differences on all sorts of things, who are committed to the national parks. Indeed, I was very impressed when I took the chair at a meeting on Thursday to hear the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State speak so positively about the parks. From that standpoint, I should like to express real gratitude that the Government have moved. In a sense, that makes my remarks on Amendments 31 and 34 sad in that I wish they were not necessary.

The amendments would remove national park authorities and the Broads Authority from Schedule 3, the schedule relating to constitutional arrangements. As has been the case on a number of other parts of this Bill, it is not clear why the wide scope of Clause 3 is necessary in the light of powers that are already available to Ministers and the absence, as I understand it, of radical proposals in the local responses to the Defra review of governance of national park authorities and the Broads Authority.

It has been suggested that the list of constitutional arrangements in Clause 3 could be tightened in relation to its application to national park authorities and the Broads Authority. However, the Government have indicated that they are not ready to do that because of the way in which the clause is set up. Clause 3(1) gives Ministers the powers to change constitutional arrangements and subsection (2) says that that includes X, Y and Z and so on. But it is not a definition of the power itself. So the Government could still make a constitutional change even if it was not listed in the examples.

It might be helpful if I put three specific questions, which I hope are constructive, to the Minister. First, why is it considered necessary to include national park authorities and the Broads Authority in Schedule 3 at all, given the powers that Ministers already have in relation to amending the membership of these bodies—for example, those introduced by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006? Secondly, will the Minister indicate which proposals emanating from the Defra review of governance of national parks are likely to require legislative changes, particularly any proposals which relate to the composition of membership of authorities and which would anyway be covered by Section 61 of the NERC Act? Thirdly, can Ministers provide a definitive list of the constitutional arrangements of national park authorities and the Broads Authority that they consider will be covered by Clause 3? Which of these do they consider will need amending in the light of the Defra governance review, which, it seems, will not be published until May because of the local elections?

If greater flexibility is still deemed necessary by the Government, surely it would be better for the Bill to contain a dedicated clause relating to national park authorities and the Broads Authority which amended the relevant sections of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 and the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988? It could specify what constitutional arrangements Ministers would have the power to amend by order. As it is, I hope that Ministers, with whom we have worked so well on this Bill, will agree that Clause 3 as it stands is unacceptably open-ended. I believe that it is time to reflect. I hope that the Government, as they have so readily done on some other issues, will move to meet these points. I beg to move.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in the questions that he put. I remember, when the NERC Act was going through, the lengthy debates that we had on how many representatives of the national interest should sit on national park authorities, what role councillors from the principal local authorities should have if, for example, they lived outside the park and so on. Many of the issues are worthy of deep consideration and consultation. It seems unfortunate—I know that it is just how the timing has worked out—that we will have to agree or disagree with the drafting here, before the consultation is completed. Up until now, the governance of national parks has evolved in a way that has carried support. My fear is that if it changes and becomes the subject of ministerial decree that consensus will be lost. I am very concerned, and I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, put his questions.