HC Deb 23 June 1959 vol 607 cc1155-66

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brooman-White.]

10.5 p.m.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine (Rye)

Criticism is frequently made that matters raised on Adjournment debates relate only to a particular constituency. The facts which I bring before the House tonight do indeed start in my constituency, but they may have a very much wider application. I am aware that there are certain hon. Members who are disturbed about some of these facts and may even be present tonight in the hope that they may be able to add something on similar lines.

The facts are that an inquiry was held about the possibility of having an atomic power station at Dungeness. That inquiry was held towards the end of last year. When it started a statement was made that there was a possibility that there would be transmission lines to the westward from that power station. My constituency starts a few miles away from where it is proposed to place the power station. In accordance with the proper procedure the clerk of the Battle Rural District Council, representing the area lying immediately nearest to the west of the site of the proposed power station, attended the inquiry and then for the first time he learned that there was a possibility of transmission lines being taken to the westward from Dungeness.

It so happened that he was not able to be present at the inquiry except on the first day and he was given permission to make a statement towards the end of that day. It was made quite clear by the inspector holding the inquiry that the question of transmission lines to the westward of the power station was not a subject of the inquiry and therefore any observations or representations made about those transmission lines were irrelevant to those proceedings.

The statement which the clerk to the Battle Rural District Council made at the inquiry raised two important points. The first was that it was wrong for an inquiry to be held at which the question of transmission lines to the west was not included in the terms of reference. There had, in fact, been an inquiry on an earlier occasion about transmission lines to and from that power station going through Kent, and it would, therefore, seem quite reasonable to assume that it would have been right to suppose that these other transmission lines would have been relevant to this inquiry.

It is not necessary for me to remind the Parliamentary Secretary that whatever may be the rights and wrongs of the matter it is very difficult to persuade the people of Sussex that if there are inquiries as to the possibility of where power lines are to go in Kent, no similar principle need be applied to Sussex.

The second point made by the clerk to the Battle Rural District Council in his statement to the inquiry was this. Once it was decided where the power station was to be, one would probably know where the power was to be taken; and it followed that there would be only a small possibility of varying the route of the power lines. It would be a question of economics, and only minor deviations from the most direct route would be possible. Anyone who looks at the map will see quite clearly that there are only two possible routes which the power line could take. One is up the Rother Valley and the other up the Brede Valley. Those who know these valleys will be aware that they are very beautiful parts of England, and to put a power line in either of them without the most careful consideration is something from which I think any Ministry ought to shrink.

There has been a suggestion that it should be taken underground, or that it should go under the sea. I think that there was also a suggestion that possibly the power line should be put along the coast. This part of the coast, as anybody who knows it realises, is very beautiful. I had the privilege, only a week or two ago, of going in a Fishery Protection Vessel along this part of the coast and having a look at it from the sea. I am quite certain that the possibility of putting a power line which is visible on any part of that coast is something which would certainly not commend itself to people who know how attractive it is.

The clerk of the rural district council made his representations, and it seemed that that was about the end of the story. So an approach was made to me. I therefore wrote to the Minister, and he replied on 5th January, when he said, among other things, that the inspectors would, no doubt, take into account, when presenting their report, the question as to where the power lines were to go. If the inspectors would "no doubt" take into consideration the position of these power lines, it seems to me quite wrong that it was not possible for representations to have been made to the inspectors before they either did or did not take into consideration the possibility of where the power lines were to go.

The other matter mentioned in this letter was that the detailed route for such a line would require a great deal of negotiations, and, of course, there would be various authorities involved, and that that would be a matter which would take some time. I say that that was an entirely irrelevant submission, because nobody would suggest that the detailed route should be worked out at the inquiry. All that the clerk of the rural district council was asking was that representations about the possibility of a power line should be made at the inquiry and as part of the inquiry, and that the details should be worked out later and the wayleaves and the exact positions of the power lines could be considered subsequently.

That did not seem to me to be a very satisfactory reply, so I wrote to the Minister again. In his next letter of 9th February, he said, among other things, that even if such representations had been made, he did not think that they would have been of "material assistance" in reaching a decision about the proposed station. It seems to me a most remarkable proposition that a Minister can come to the conclusion that representations which he has not heard would not be of any assistance to him in coming to the decision which he is about to make. Therefore, I wrote to him a third letter, and I received the reply on 10th March, which roughly repeated the same type of proposition that I have mentioned to the House.

I then put down two Questions to the Paymaster-General, and these Questions were answered by the Parliamentary Secretary. In his Answer to the first, he suggested that I was under a misapprehension, and went on to say: My noble Friend's inspectors take full account of possible routes to be taken by transmission lines associated with the proposed power station. It seems to me a very remarkable position that I should be under the misapprehension that the inspectors would take into consideration full account of possible routes on which no representations had been made at all.

I would say that these inspectors have nothing on which they could make any decision, for they did not know where these power lines were to go, and if they were to take anything of that kind into consideration it was their duty, and it was the duty of the Minister, to include these considerations in the inquiry which was held towards the end of last year. So I say that if there is anybody under a misapprehension, it was my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who seems to think that it is possible to decide on a proposition on which the facts are not laid before him.

The Answer to my second Question was: The route of the proposed transmission lines from a power station at Dungeness to a sub-station at Lydd and from this sub-station to Canterbury has already been the subject of public inquiries. That goes back to my first point—that if we can have an inquiry in the one case, why should we be denied the opportunity of making our representations before a decision is taken as to where the power station is to go? My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary went on to say: My noble Friend in reaching his decision will also take full account of the probability that a further transmission line running Westwards will be needed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th May, 1959; Vol. 605, c. 13.] There, again, it seems to me we are back where we started, for his noble Friend will take full account of something on which no representations have been made to him at all. I therefore feel that these Answers are couched in bureaucratic language, which certainly does not commend itself to my constituents.

I had a look at the observations which were made in the Franks Report about how these inquiries should be conducted, and there were three principles laid down: openness, fairness and impartiality. On fairness, the Franks Report said: Next, take fairness. If the objector were not allowed to state his case, there would be nothing to stop oppression. Thirdly, there is impartiality. How can the citizen be satisfied unless he feels that those who decide his case come to their decision with open minds? How can it be said that an inquiry held subsequent to the events which I have outlined will be held by somebody who is coming to consider the matter with an open mind?

Further, the Franks Report says that fairness to require the adoption of a clear procedure which enables parties to know their rights, to present their case fully and to know the case which they have to meet". My constituents feel that they have not had the opportunity of putting forward their case, as, indeed, they have not.

This is a matter which has received publicity outside my constituency. There was a letter written by Councillor Reitlinger, the present vice-chairman of the Battle Rural District Council and published in The Times on 14th March last. The Brighton Evening Argus had a leading article on 3rd April last. The News Chronicle, on 26th March last, said this: As he has not heard the suggestions the Minister cannot know whether they would be helpful or not. This contempt for local government is bureaucracy at its worst. It seems the Government is treating the public inquiries merely as a matter of form. … Every effort should be made to create harmony instead of a conflict of interests. I raise this matter tonight in the hope that in some way harmony may be restored, and if there is any way in which my hon. Friend can help to do that I shall certainly be very grateful. Although it is too late to do very much to help in this case, I feel that the debate may be of some use if my hon. Friend can give an undertaking that, when there is an inquiry of a similar nature in the future, all the relevant factors shall be heard before the decision is taken. If my hon. Friend can give an undertaking that the approximate line and destination of power lines from any proposed site should be regarded in future with the formal application as something which should be considered at the inquiry, then I think that this debate will not have been in vain.

But as long as we have letters from the Minister saying that his inspectors will "no doubt" take into consideration something which they have not heard, or if the Minister writes that something which he does not know and is to be put to him later would not be of any "material assistance" to him, I do not believe that there is any possibility of progress. In coming to a decision the Minister should take every step to ensure having the whole picture presented to him. Deciding a case piecemeal is not satisfactory to the people who will be affected by that decision.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able at least to say that in future cases this principle will be laid down, and if he does that tonight that will be of help to other persons, even if it is not of much assistance to my constituents.

10.19 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Sir Ian Horobin)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) for raising this important matter. I shall start with one or two very brief general observations and then deal with the special point. I should like to say at once that my noble Friend and the Ministry responsible do not think that the present situation is necessarily perfect, and certainly have not the slightest desire to ride roughshod over local opinion. Anything that can be done increasingly to ensure that justice is done and is seen to be done will, as always, be very sympathetically considered.

One must start in all this by realising the difficulties of the Central Electricity Generating Board. These stations must be built somewhere. Indeed, it is constituents like my hon. Friend's who are everlastingly saying "Why don't you hurry up with rural electrification?"; but they do not want to have the wires bringing over the power. If a station is in an urban area they say it is not safe. If it is in the country they say that the best agricultural land in England cannot be spared, and if it is in a wilderness like Dungeness that is the last remaining breeding ground of some strange insect, and the station must not be built there.

The Board is in an extremely difficult situation. There is only one other nuclear power station site possible in this part of England and that is at Red-ham Mead on the Thames. That site is so small that even if a station were built there in the near future there would have to be at least one if not two other similar stations, whereas a station can be installed on this site to a capacity of about 1,500 megawatts, which is on a totally different scale. Therefore, whatever is done, whether conventional or nuclear, there will have to be more stations in the south of England. The whole basis of the grid is that it must be linked up and somewhere an east-west transmission line is necessary. It is against that background that we must consider the special problem of this case.

I should like to state briefly the facts as I have been able to discover them after careful enquiry. I do not think there is any dispute that the Generating Board carried out its statutory duties and informed the planning authorities, the County Council of Kent and the County Borough of Lydd in an application for consent on 26th June. I should like to read a phrase from that application which is material: An additional double circuit 275,000 volts transmission line will be required to connect the load centres in the West and a route for this will he submitted to the Local Planning and Local Authority in due course. On 9th July, in accordance with standing practice, Kent wrote to Sussex, and some time before 6th August, Sussex County Council wrote to Battle. It is perfectly true, and I do not want to overlook any of the facts, that Kent County Council did not in terms refer to the fact that the line to the west would be required but it informed Sussex, and Sussex informed Battle, that all the particulars, including a statement which referred specifically to a line to the west were available at Lydd, and that was in August four months before the inquiry began on 16th December.

I will not go into the matter of advertising, though similar information was given in national and in some local newspapers. I accept at once that it was in good faith that the Battle authority said that it knew only at the inquiry for the first time that such a line to the west would be required. I can only say, without any sense of criticising it or any other of the authorities concerned, that if one is informed that the particulars of something are available for four months and one does not look at them or, having looked at them one does not notice the specific words to which I have referred, it is perhaps a little unfortunate.

We then come to the point where it might be asked, "That may be all true but were the observations which Battle made on the first day of the inquiry in some way prejudiced because they were not relevant or within the terms of reference of the inquiry itself?" We must draw a distinction, which was quite clearly drawn by those holding the inquiry, and they were not only an inspector of the Ministry of Power, who might be held to be to a certain extent interested, but also an inspector of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and the report concerned is a joint and unanimous report.

It is perfectly true that the exact route of the line to the west was not before the inquiry and could not be gone into in detail, but the fact that there would have to be a line somewhere to the west was not only before the inquiry but the representative of Battle Council made a very good statement of the objections to it. The fact is that the necessity of a line to the west was material to the inquiry, was within the terms of reference and was, in fact, so dealt with, and not in any way cursorily.

I have here before me the evidence taken. There are 150 pages of evidence so it is not a cursory document. In the agreed report which will be published with the Minister's decision in due course, there are over 50 pages relating 15 objections which will have to be considered. I must not quote it because under the rules of order I would perhaps have to give the whole of the document at this stage. It refers the Minister specifically to the fact that he must consider the need for a western transmission line in giving or refusing his consent.

So my hon. Friend must appreciate that, far from anything being done in a hole and corner way, or anybody being deliberately prejudiced, the fact that such a line would be required was, or ought to have been, known several months before the inquiry. They did make a statement, a good statement. The two inspectors drew the special attention of my noble Friend to that statement, and of course it will be one of the things to which he is now directing his mind.

The fact is that the Central Electricity Generating Board is in a difficult position. It knows that the North Fleet-Canterbury line is essential to reinforce the electricity supply of Canterbury. In fact, I am informed that temporary arrangements will have to be made in future for preventing actual breakdowns in Canterbury, the need for reinforcement is so great.

Having got so far, the Canterbury-Lydd line is necessary to deal with the cross-Channel cable. Having done that, we are in the position that a big station must be put somewhere. I am not prejudging my noble Friend's decision when I say that there were strong reasons given before the inquiry, which appear in the report, for putting a station near to these lines which will run under the sea near Lydd. Wherever we put a station down there it will require a connection to the west in some direction. The exact line for that will have to be settled later; all the machinery will be gone into, and the Battle Rural District Council and the Sussex County Council, and so on, will have their statutory right to argue as to whether it shall go up the Rother or the Brede Valley or elsewhere.

In deciding whether, in view of the urgent need to increase electricity supplies for the South-East, this is or is not a good site for a station, I submit that all that is required is to bear in mind that it involves an east-west line somewhere. Whether it goes along one particular route or another is not material at this stage. My noble Friend will have to ask in effect, "Are the overriding grounds for a large station in this area such that we must place a connection more or less in an east-west direction across Sussex and the western part of Kent?", but it is not material to him to know exactly in which place it should go.

It is material to point out, I think, that the primary planning authority concerned, the Sussex County Council, said in terms at the inquiry that it is content to rely on the assurance given to the residents at Rye by Mr. Wacher, the representative of the Central Electricity Generating Board—and also to Mr. Chattoe, who represented the Council for the Preservation of Rural England—that the route would be fairly well to the north of Rye and that current would be fed into the line between Three Bridges and Brighton at some point north of the South Downs.

That is as much as the Generating Board knows or could know. It could only know exactly if it knew where the growth of electricity south-west of London would take place—which nobody could know—and where the other station or stations further down the Channel would be built. Even if it knew that, it would only push the difficulty further, because it would want to know whether it would have to go further into Hampshire.

We are in difficulty here. If we could tell everybody to stop using electricity for five years we could make a complete survey and put our stations in the best places all over England, and, conceivably, one could draw up an exact route for all the transmission systems. But that is impracticable.

Therefore, I put it to my hon. Friend that we are faced with a genuine difficulty. It is impossible for the Generating Board to know exactly where it has to put the lines, and it is impossible for my noble Friend to wait before deciding, broadly speaking, where he is to consent to stations. Otherwise the supply of electricity in southern England would come to a standstill. So we can only do our best. We can only give a general indication, and that general indication was given by the Generating Board. I very much regret if it was not drawn as clearly to the attention of everybody concerned as it was in the documents properly deposited at Lydd.

As I began by saying, my noble Friend is very willing to consider whether, as my hon. Friend said, for the future there may be any way in which we can avoid even the semblance of not doing justice to local opinion, but I think that in the light of what I have said my hon. Friend can be reassured that this is not any bureaucratic attempt to override a fair consideration of local needs. We have, however, to face it that if the country as a whole is to get a vast and increasing use of electricity, these generating stations have to be put somewhere, and wherever one puts them one has to link them up with all the other stations, and that presents a very great difficulty both to the Generating Board and to my noble Friend.

I do not think there is any suggestion that the Generating Board did not fulfil all its statutory obligations. I can assure my hon. Friend that my noble Friend will do his very best for fair judgment, in the light of the joint and unanimous report of the inspectors of the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and if any improvement can be made or suggested by my hon. Friend, it will be very sympathetically considered.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Eleven o'clock.