HC Deb 17 July 1970 vol 803 cc1874-90

11.23 a.m.

Mr. Michael Hamilton (Salisbury)

Turning from Fiji to matters nearer home, I would like to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary upon his appointment, which is welcomed in all parts of the House. He is, I know, a preservationist at heart and as such will have my support. I am only sorry that in welcoming him here for what I believe is his first Adjournment debate I should not have more attractive fare to put before him.

Three years ago my constituents suffered an injustice. The facts are safely on the record in HANSARD of 25th July, 1969, and 19th March, 1970. I have no wish now to add or subtract from that record nor need I cover that unhappy ground in detail again.

Wiltshire people were the victims of the first secret planning inquiry in history, a fact confirmed by the previous Administration. My constituents have paid dearly for that, and it seems that they will pay more dearly still in the future. In what I have to say I invite my hon. Friend not to hesitate to intervene to correct me on any point of fact.

What happened was that a company from another part of England sought permission to carry out large-scale mineral workings in one of our loveliest unspoiled valleys. A public inquiry was held. We discovered two years later that before the inquiry the company had called at the Ministry of Housing and had asked that part of the inquiry be held in camera. As a result the inspector conducting the enquiry was alerted to expect this request at the inquiry.

I interpolate here that in this country about one-third of a million applications for planning permission are made every year; that at that moment there had never been a planning inquiry held in secret; that the Minister had several weeks in which to act but it never appeared to him that it was desirable to warn a soul of what was afoot. Thus with no warning from the Minister this charming little piece of play-acting took place at the inquiry between the inspector and the appellant company.

My unsuspecting constituents were hustled from the room. Not a single elected member of any local authority remained behind. The distinguished geologist from London University, the only man who understood things, was equally turned away because the company objected to his presence. Justice did not shine very brightly that day in Salisbury. Openness and fairness, the two cardinal principles which the Franks Committee sought to inject into our inquiry procedures, were both ruthlessly jettisoned. Then 15 months later the nation was in the grip of financial crisis. The Minister of Housing, against his better judgment, succumbed to export pressures from the Board of Trade and allowed the appeal and the machines went to work in that valley.

This was not an easy case to fight. After this inquiry the Minister took 15 months to make up his mind. I will never criticise him for that delay but at the same time I could hardly raise matters before he had reached a decision. On the day that his decision reached me I referred matters to the then Prime Minister, asking him for a standstill. The then Prime Minister in reply supported his Minister of Housing. Time was running on. I then referred certain aspects of the case to the Parliamentary Commissioner. His deliberations, and I do not criticise him for this, took no less than six months. While matters lay before the Parliamentary Commissioner, with his rather narrow terms of reference, it seemed to me that it would be wholly discourteous if I made an additional reference to the Council on Tribunals because the Parliamentary Commissioner is an ex officio member of the Council.

When the Council on Tribunals received it, at once it grasped the seriousness of the issue. But by then it was late in the day. More than two years had passed since those events in Salisbury and much water had flowed under the bridge. The Council indicated to me having regard to the date on which the Minister's decision was announced, the Council would not have been prepared to recommend that the inquiry should be reopened". Put another way, it was too late. The machines were already at work.

But the Council has been my friend. It seized on the point that such an event must never happen again, and for that I am grateful to it. Discussions between my hon. Friend's Department and the Council on Tribunals began. Those discussions are still in progress. They have continued for a year. They still have some way to go. These are grave issues, and justice cannot be hurried.

Then at last I was free to raise matters in this Chamber, and I was deeply grateful for the sympathy and support shown to my constituents. I remember my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Posts and Telecommunications saying in the House that the whole House would have a sense of unease about the story which had been unfolded. The reaction was the same in another place. No less a figure than Lord Brooke of Cumnor, a former Conservative Minister of Housing and Local Government, expressed his deep concern at what had taken place.

The national Press was equally unanimous. One newspaper said: If anybody doubts that public affairs should be handled openly and that anything resembling secrecy carries special dangers, let him read about recent happenings in the Dean Valley, Wiltshire. That was the theme of the leading article.

The feeling of Wiltshire people was described in another morning newspaper as the true spirit of English liberty still gloriously and unexpectedly alive in 1969". Thus, for a while, the issue burned brightly and then it spluttered and died, and the civil servants put away their files with a sigh of relief.

But justice is not mocked, and once again the same issue lies before us. The foot is in the door. Now come the pressures to open the door wider. This time, unlike the last time, events lie in front of us, and I suspect that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary would agree that it is easier to take a bird in front than behind.

On 18th June, a month ago, while the polling stations were still open, somebody at the Ministry of Housing was good enough to write to me. He courteously wrote to me at the House of Commons. It was kind of him to anticipate the decision of the electors of Salisbury. It always puzzles me, but I sometimes think that civil servants deliberately make their signature illegible to hide their identity. At all events, he told me in this letter that a planning inquiry was due to be held at the Guildhall, Salisbury, on 28th July. The outgoing Minister had chosen that date and instructed his inspector to attend. The inquiry, which lies 10 days ahead of us, is to consider applications to extend the activities of those who were permitted to carry out mineral workings in the Dean Valley. When the letter reached me, the final election results were still coming in, but it was joyously clear that there was to be a change of Administration, and by 20th June, therefore, I was able to write to my right hon. Friend the new Minister of Housing.

I know that the problems confronting a new Minister taking over a great Department of State are manifold and I would wish for him that in the opening days the normal machinery would cope satisfactorily with day-to-day matters. But I considered it imperative that he should appreciate at the outset that this was no mere run-of-the-mill business. Time was critically short. The House would soon be rising for the Summer Recess. A date for the inquiry had been fixed. Either my right hon. Friend could postpone the inquiry for a few weeks until there had been time for consideration or follow the road determined by his predecessor. The choice for him was wide open.

The fact that these two applications had lain on the table since last year meant that a few weeks one side or the other could not materially matter, and yet a few weeks would give just that time for reflection which a vital issue like this demanded. But, in reply, the Minister made clear that he could not consider postponement.

Since then, I have moved very carefully indeed. I have done all that is open to me to do to warn my right hon. Friend, and I believe that here he would accept what I say. I sense that if there is a pull for me between my constituents and wishing to ease the task of my right hon. Friend in his new work there is equally for him a pull between wishing to help a colleague, which I have no doubt he would wish to do, and supporting the line adopted by those in his Department over the last three years. What has placed my right hon. Friend and myself in this unhappy juxtaposition is the insistence on maintaining the date of the inquiry at 28th July.

Before raising matters in the House, I thought that I must first establish how far down the strange road of his predecessor my right hon. Friend was prepared to go. I therefore tabled a very simple Question. I asked the Minister if the public inquiry to be held in Salisbury on 28th July would be held in public. I wanted to establish whether the events of 1967 were a disastrous lapse on the part of the previous Administration, or whether the secret planning inquiry is a new feature which we must expect from Labour and Conservative Administrations alike.

What was the Minister's answer? He replied I have no present reason to believe that in camera proceedings will be sought."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th July, 1970; Vol. 803, c. 96.] Now we know. The new Minister is not prepared to eschew such practices. The inquiry may be in public, or it may not. My right hon. Friend is keeping his options open, and thus if I choose to go to the public inquiry in the heart of my constituency on 28th July I may be admitted, or I may not. I may find the door closed, just as it was closed in 1967. The Minister stands firmly shoulder to shoulder with his predecessor on this issue. They both claim that the decision whether an inquiry should be held in public or in camera rests on the discretion of the inspector conducting the inquiry. This is the language, the true tone, of the previous Administration.

In 1967 a distinguished geologist travelled from London to Salisbury. He might just as well have stayed in London. He was good enough to call on me here this week because he wishes to help his friends in Wiltshire. He does not believe the claims which have been put forward, but I could not possibly recommend him to make the journey a second time. Moreover, the cost of railway tickets has gone up since 1967.

I ask myself what further tragic farce is necessary before the Dean Valley is finally put out of its misery? I am sorry to say that my right hon. Friend has failed to allay my suspicions. If he could not give me an assurance about whether it would be held in public or in private, I had hoped that he might at least have been able to give the assurance before the date itself, and so I tabled another Question. I asked whether he could give the assurance in order to save members of the public long journeys to no purpose as happened on a previous occasion, and the answer is in HANSARD of two days ago. The answer is "No". But that answer in HANSARD of two days ago—and I acquit my right hon. Friend absolutely of this because I feel sure that he cannot have seen the answer until after it appeared in print—contains the final twist of administrative hypocrisy. It refers to the coming inquiry, which will be concerned only with the applications for planning consent now before my right hon. Friend."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th July, 1970; Vol. 803, c. 228.] The Question was answered by the Minister of State. How innocent that phrase sounds—"the coming inquiry which will be concerned only with the applications before it". The plot is as simple as that. It is so transparent.

Perhaps I should explain. Once a Minister has decided a planning issue, it is said that the matter is closed, the file is put away, and if a subsequent application is made, that application is judged on its merits in isolation. There are to be separate watertight compartments, although it is all part of the same industrial complex, and it is all part of a single continuous process.

Perhaps I might translate this into more practical terms. We have in the Dean Valley today a Trojan Horse. It was admitted by the Minister in 1967 after that secret planning inquiry. We see it, but we do not know why it is there. We were told that more than 200 other sites were explored before it was decided that this particular stretch of countryside must be sacrificed. We do not know where a single one of those 200 sites is. We do not know what tests were carried out at those sites. Our valley is taken from us, but we do not know why.

Since being admitted this Trojan Horse has acquired hundreds of acres of good farm land adjoining its modest initial pitch. The area there now is a good deal larger in extent than Hyde Park. Moreover, it has acquired acres in many other parts of my constituency. It now plans, as my hon. Friend knows, to set up on the other side of Salisbury a processing plant which will draw its raw material from the Dean Valley. Thus, we now see the outline of a single giant edifice built on the foundations of secrecy.

In 10 days' time the Minister's inspector will attend at the 18th century Guildhall in Salisbury and conduct an inquiry into the merits of this processing plant. It may be in public; it may not. Nobody knows what the process is. Nobody will be told what the process is, and only a mere handful of technicians could understand even if they were told. The inspector will not encourage questions on the previous application. That file, we must remember, is neatly closed. That is the intention.

The local authorities will be consulted. They will be invited to give their views—"Would this extension of the Dean Valley activity be a good thing or not? What do they think?" I would answer "What can they think?" They will be courteous—Wiltshire people are always courteous—and they will try to help, but not one elected member of a local authority, neither parish, district nor county councillor, was present at the secret hearing. How can they be asked to contribute their views? How can they be asked to pass judgment on this extension to the Dean Valley activity? To me, even to invite them to do so is lacking in integrity. Participation in planning, yes; but participation is meaningless unless all the facts are known to all parties. I am afraid that this inquiry, like the last one, will be a charade. It is a further insult to my already bruised constituents.

Once a Minister becomes party to secrets he, and he alone, can decide whether extensions to the original activity should be allowed. That is the bitter and logical answer to the whole matter. There is no other conclusion. Where there is injury, I would expect a Conservative Minister to heal it. Indeed. I asked my right hon. Friend if he would cause an investigation to be made into the whole matter, but the OFFICIAL REPORT of two days ago confirms that my right hon. Friend sees no need for this. Not merely is he not prepared to cause an investigation to be made. Not merely does he appear to condone what has taken place. Worse threatens than that. To my great sorrow, it would appear that he has chosen to pursue the self-same path in the days ahead.

I assure my right hon. Friend that the inquiry on 28th July will not be the last. Along the road lie yet further applications. One will follow another. Time limits will need to be extended—extended into the next century. Acreage will need to be extended too. Each fresh application will stem from the same initial secrecy behind which the original permission was granted. It is a slippery slope. Each fresh application is a further step along it. Each fresh application will bear the same stigma of in camera proceedings. This is why I sought to warn my right hon. Friend, but he is very confident.

It would be premature at this stage to assume that the Parliamentary Commissioner has said all he has to say. This problem is a problem of a continuing process—yesterday, today and tomorrow. Nor would I care to hazard a guess at the present thinking of the Council on Tribunals. On the face of it, it would appear to have been treated with modest courtesy. The former Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington), said We are having these discussions and can rely on the Council on Tribunals to insist on rules if it is thought necessary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July, 1969; Vol. 787, c. 2344.] Where are these rules? Yet in 10 days' time the Minister is to consider an extension of the 1967 installation.

I named this brief debate "A dangerous planning legacy". Dangerous it is. It is full of pitfalls. I have never wavered in my belief during these three years that the enormity of what has happened will speak for itself and that, in due time, the valley will be saved.

I have noted the undertaking in the Queen's Speech by the new Government: My Ministers will intensify the drive to remedy past damage to the environment, and seek to safeguard the beauty of the British countryside. I believe that this Government will keep their promises and I would ask my hon. Friend for reassurance.

11.53 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Paul Channon)

I should like at the outset to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Michael Hamilton) for his very kind remarks which I very much appreciate. I am most grateful to him for what he said and I can assure him that I will do my utmost to listen carefully to any representations he makes to me on any topic that it would be appropriate for me to hear. Obviously, I could not listen to any matters which are sub judice, but on any other matters on which he cares to approach me I shall always be at his service.

I wish to congratulate my hon. Friend on his persistence on behalf of his constituents in obtaining this Adjournment debate so soon and on being so clever in finding a day when we can have an unhurried debate to allow these matters to be fully ventilated. My hon. Friend's constituents can feel that their case has been put forward persistently and energetically by my hon. Friend.

I make no complaint about my hon. Friend's deep concern over this case, although he will not expect me to agree with every detail of the case which he has outlined this morning. If I do not take his arguments point by point, I know that he will not expect me to be taken as agreeing with all the interpretations which he has put upon all the events which have taken place.

My hon. Friend is right to refer to this as a very important planning matter since it concerns the question of chalk extraction from a site about half a mile to the south of East Grimstead near Salisbury and of two planning applications which have been called-in for decision by the Minister. One of these applications concerns a railway siding for use in connection with the East Grimstead Chalk Pit and the other a minerals treatment works at Quidhampton Chalk Pit on the other side of Salisbury. Both applications are, of course, now sub judice and a local inquiry has been arranged. The House would not expect me to comment on the merits of the cases which are before my right hon. Friend. I will confine myself therefore to matters of procedure and to past history.

I should like to begin by briefly recounting the background of the chalk quarrying at East Grimstead. On 10th November, 1966, Salisbury and Wilton Rural District Council refused English China Clays Limited planning permission for the winning and working of chalk and alterations to an access on some 25½ acres at East Grimstead, near Salisbury. An appeal was lodged with the then Minister under Section 23, Town and Country Planning Act, 1962.

A local inquiry was held in June, 1967. My hon. Friend was right to say that earlier a representative of the appellant company had called at the Department to seek procedural advice about the possibility of certain evidence of a commercially confidential nature being heard in camera. He was advised that there was no bar to part of the inquiry proceedings being heard in camera if the inspector conducting the inquiry should so decide. It was a matter for his discretion after hearing any argument. The Rules of Procedure (Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) Rules, 1965), which have now been consolidated as the Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1969, state that … the procedure at the inquiry shall be such as the appointed person shall in his discretion determine". This would not enable the inspector to exclude any of the parties entitled under the rules to appear.

After hearing the company's application, to which no objection was raised, the inspector agreed to hear the technical evidence in camera in the presence of representatives of the appellant company, the clerk of the rural district council who represented the local planning authority who are the statutory parties and of a solicitor representing owners of adjoining land. At the in camera proceedings, which lasted only a short time, it was agreed that the appellant company's claim about the special quality of the chalk in the appeal site should be the subject of any necessary further technical examination by the Minister.

Following receipt of the inspector's report, including a separate report in confidence on the in camera proceedings, a long and exhaustive test was carried out of the company's confidential claims on the instructions of the then Joint Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) and in consultation with the Government Chief Scientific Adviser and the Director of the Institute of Geological Sciences. Samples of chalk taken by the Department's geologists from several sites in Southern England were tested in the company's laboratory under the supervision of technical officers from the Government Chemist's Laboratory, the Stationery Office and the Department.

The investigations supported the company's claim that the quality of the chalk in the appeal site was crucial for the company's purposes and that similar material had not been found to be available in adequate quantities elsewhere. The then Minister then decided to allow the appeal in respect of part only of the site, about ten acres, and his decision was issued on 6th September, 1968. It was limited to a period of five years.

My hon. Friend, on behalf of his constituents, subsequently made representations to the then Minister and to the Prime Minister of the day in a number of letters from 1st May, 1967. At his request a statement of his views was read at the inquiry into the appeal in which he said that his sympathies lay firmly with those who wished to keep the area unspoiled. He later requested the then Minister to make available to him the record of the in camera proceedings in order that he should have the opportunity to commission an independent examination of the technical evidence submitted by the appellant company. This request was rejected because the in camera evidence was given to the Minister's inspector in confidence and the company were, and indeed are, entitled to expect that the confidence be respected.

My hon. Friend then asked the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate the case. The Commissioner having examined the issues was satisfied that it was reasonable for the technical evidence to be heard in camera. He took the view that because the other parties could not effectively challenge the evidence, the then Minister was justified in the unusual course of himself undertaking to test the appellants' evidence.

My hon. Friend then complained to the Council on Tribunals about the handling of the case. It declined to intervene, though it recognised that an important procedural point had been raised and thought that there ought to be a provision in the statutory rules to deal with it. It said that it would discuss this with the appropriate Departments. Discussions on the general question of admission of in camera proceedings at future local inquiries into planning appeals are currently taking place with the Council on Tribunals, but the House will appreciate that I cannot go into detail about this at the present time. Useful informal discussions have taken place with the Council on Tribunals and good progress has been made, but this is a very complex matter. My right hon. Friend and the Lord Chancellor, who is, of course, the authority responsible for making, after formal consultation with the Council, any rules of procedure that may be considered necessary will wish to give careful thought to this question and to the Council's advice, before consulting the local authority associations and professional and other bodies who are normally consulted in these important procedural matters.

I have before me a list of the bodies which will have to be consulted before any change in the rules would take place. It would not be right to give the House the impression that these rules will be able to come in as quickly as all that. There will have to be careful study of them and careful consultations. It will take some time before any new procedures, whether by rule or otherwise, can be established.

I must emphasise that in camera proceedings are extremely rare and the Ministry would not want to encourage anyone to apply for such hearings, since the object is always to allow the maximum openness in the consideration of planning applications and appeals. Nevertheless, as the courts have always recognised, there are some circumstances where a public hearing would defeat the needs of justice and would not be in the national interest. One of these would be if a secret manufacturing process were to be made public.

After the Parliamentary Commissioner had made his report finding no fault against the administrative handling of the East Grinstead chalk case by the Ministry, my hon. Friend had further correspondence with him, principally about two matters. First, my hon. Friend alleged that the Minister alerted the inspector, but no other parties, to the possibility of a request for in camera proceedings.

The second point on which he had correspondence with the Commissioner was that he alleged that the confidential information which the Minister had been given was public knowledge before the decision, because of patents taken out by the appellants in foreign countries.

The Parliamentary Commissioner found nothing wrong with the Minister's action in alerting the inspector nor did he accept the complaint that all the confidential information given to the Minister at the inquiry had subsequently been published. On this latter point he said: I note, moreover, that one piece of information made available to the inspector and the Minister which concerns the application of the process rather than the process itself is not referred to in the continental patents which I have examined."—

Mr. Michael Hamilton

Did it not strike my hon. Friend as interesting that a distinguished figure like the Parliamentary Commissioner, in addition to his normal gifts, of which we are all aware, should be competent to study documents so technical as this patent in question?

Mr. Channon

Before I answer that question, perhaps I could finish the quotation from the Commissioner, which is important. He went on: This information is stated in the Ministry's file to be of crucial importance. My hon. Friend quoted from this very statement very fairly in one of his earlier Adjournment debates. I do not think that the Parliamentary Commissioner was called upon to make a technical judgment about the patents, but he examined the whole question of Belgian, French and Dutch patents and other matters, and noted that there was one piece of information which was made available which was not referred to in the continental patents which he examined and which was stated to be of crucial importance. That was the basis for that remark.

But my hon. Friend exercised his rights, quite rightly, by initiating two debates on these matters in the House on 25th July last year and 19th March this year. In these, he criticised the in camera proceedings and argued that other parties should have been consulted before they were adopted.

I should like to turn now to the two applications now before my right hon. Friend. Two applications were made in 1969 by Rogers and Cooke (Salisbury) Limited, a subsidiary company of English China Clays Limited, which were "called in" last March for decision by the Minister. As I said, these applications are for a railway siding for use in connection with the East Grimstead Chalk Pit and a minerals treatment works at Quidhampton Chalk Pit on the other side of Salisbury.

Arrangements have been made for the local inquiry to take place, as my hon. Friend said, at Salisbury on 28th July and all statutory parties and other interested parties have been notified accordingly. Copies of the Minister's call-in letter and of this inquiry notice were sent to my hon. Friend. The Department showed considerable prescience, I think, in addressing their notes to him at the House.

The applicant company has provided for the inquiry a statutory statement of the submissions which it proposes to put forward and in this it has confirmed that it does not intend to take any initiative to submit evidence of a confidential character at the inquiry. Should objectors at the inquiry, however, raise issues regarding the "secret" technology of the company in respect of the chalk at East Grimstead, for the working of which planning permission has been granted, it would be open to the company to ask the inspector to take evidence in camera.

It would be for the inspector to decide what action to take if such a request were made and I can make no observations on matters which are for the inspector's discretion. Indeed, in view of the rules, it would be wholly im proper to attempt to fetter or influence his decision in any way. It is for him to conduct the inquiry. He will act in accordance with the rules which have been laid down for conducting inquiries.

My hon. Friend has asked my right hon. Friend to postpone the inquiry arranged for 28th July and he has been informed, as he pointed out, that my right hon. Friend has not been able to meet that request. The company is entitled to have its application dealt with in the normal way just as any other citizen would. The planning application for the Quidhampton works was first made to the Salisbury and Wilton Rural District Council in June, 1969, but it was revised in November. The application for the railway siding was made to the rural district council in December, 1969. The Wiltshire County Council referred those applications to the then Minister, at his request, at the end of January, 1970, and in March the council submitted to the Minister copies of representations made in response to published notices of the applications.

On 25th March, the Minister called in both applications for his own decision. Arrangements were then put in train for a public local inquiry, which has been arranged for 28th July. The time between call-in and inquiry date is of average length. My right hon. Friend would be open to serious criticism were he to have delayed the handling of these applications. I have tried to explain that this is not possible. It would not be possible to wait until the receipt of the report of the Council on Tribunals as a considerable time would be required before decisions could be taken upon it.

The new inquiry will not in any way prejudice consideration by the local planning authority or by my right hon. Friend of any future application for an extension of chalk workings. I cannot say much about the new inquiry which is to take place. My right hon. Friend will have to consider it in due course and make a decision about this matter.

Nobody likes the idea of in camera proceedings at inquiries, particularly when matters are of widespread concern to local people, and not merely to those who are entitled to be heard on a strict interpretation of the rules. The occasions when there is need for such procedures are, fortunately, rare and I certainly accept that the best possible safeguards must be devised. That is being done and that will be pressed forward energetically.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's very proper concern on behalf of his constituents. He has rightly put forward their views to my predecessors and pursued their interests vigorously at every stage. In fairness, however, to my predecessors and to the Department, I must point out that both the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Council on Tribunals have cleared them of any charge of maladministration.

I quote from the report of the Council on Tribunals: The matter has been very carefully considered and the Council have come to the conclusion that as regards the present case, there are no grounds on which they would be justified in intervening. I quote from the Parliamentary Commissioner: In my report last year, I found nothing to criticise in the public inquiry. That is a fair summary of their views. As, however, my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, the Council on Tribunals wished to examine the rules, and that is now being pressed forward.

I can well understand my hon. Friend's feelings, representing as he does one of the most beautiful parts of England. I well understand his determined efforts to preserve the amenities of the countryside and the quality of life there. Were I the Member for Salisbury, I am sure that I would attempt to act in the same way as my hon. Friend has done, but whether I should have the energy and persistence which he has shown, I do not know.

I assure my hon. Friend that both my right hon. Friend and I have not come to this decision lightly. We have most carefully examined the history of this remarkable and unique case. I know that my hon. Friend will accept that my right hon. Friend and I have considered it very carefully, as we always will, and have given weight to any representations which he makes on any issue on which it is proper for us to hear hon. Members. Nevertheless, I hope that the House will agree that the proper course now is for the new inquiry to proceed in the normal way. As for the general question of procedure at inquiries in future, a report will be received in due course. It is far too early to say what will be in that report but I assure the House that there will be no unnecessary delay in its consideration when it arrives.

I am exceedingly sorry that in the first Adjournment debate to which I have replied and on the first occasion when I am speaking in a debate from the Box, I should have to act in a way that will not satisfy my hon. Friend. That distresses me very much. I have, however, looked at this matter very carefully, and so has my right hon. Friend, and I hope that on balance the House will agree with us that there is no practical alternative to the course of action which I have outlined. I hope that my hon. Friend will realise that although I do not expect him to agree with what we have done, we have considered very carefully the courses open to us and have come to the conclusion not without a great deal of thought that the present inquiry must proceed and we must await the report from the Council on Tribunals, which, I hope, will not be too long delayed. Consultations will then take place and I assure my hon. Friend that we shall then consider the report when it arrives with very great dispatch.