Michael Purdue

Investigation as legitimacy: the maturing of the big public inquiry

Abstract All major resource development schemes lie embedded in political prejudices and commitments, in interest group expectations which themselves are influenced by past events, and in the changing atmosphere of public priorities. A proposal to develop a new technology, which, especially if successful, would lead to further investments of a similar nature but which would by necessity restrict the scope for other opportunities in other policy areas, is bound to be controversial. The inevitable demand is for full justification through some kind of reputable open examination whose conduct and outcome are deemed to be fair and legitimate. While the form of that examination will vary from country to country its function remains the same — namely, to mobilise public support for a decision and the policies that envelop it. In the U.K. the public inquiry seeks to serve such a function. Its constitutional role, history, contemporary style and emerging problems of legitimacy are all examined with reference to the Sizewell B Inquiry into Britains first pressurised water reactor.

The context and conduct of the Sizewell B Inquiry

Abstract The Sizewell B Inquiry is turning out to be the longest and by far the most expensive investigation of its kind ever held in the UK. It is evolving from a statutory public inquiry into something akin to a commission of investigation. This paper looks at the circumstances which led to the current political support for the pressurized water reactor (PWR) and to the convening of the Sizewell B Inquiry. It also describes the purpose of the Inquiry and its constitutional role. The implications of the more independent, investigatory approach taken by the inquiry are discussed. The paper also comments on the view that the Inquiry is not just an examination of the merits and drawbacks of the PWR: it is provoking questions concerning the workings of the ‘big inquiry’ itself.

How the sizewell B inquiry is grappling with the concept of acceptable risk

Abstract There is no agreed level of safety that is ‘acceptable’. Those responsible for managing and regulating safety believe that they can establish adequate parameters, but they recognize that those standards must meet with ‘public approval’. This paper examines one way in which that approval is sought, namely the quasijudicial examination of the merits of a proposal to construct Britains first pressurized water reactor at the Sizewell B site on the Suffolk coast. The authors argue that the Sizewell B Inquiry appears to operate on the assumption that acceptable risk levels can be determined through argument and cross-examination. In its approach to the determination of acceptable risk the Inquiry seems dependent on professional judgement and expertise as assessed by legal minds trained to sift evidence. To ensure that all the necessary evidence comes before it, the Inquiry has established procedures to initiate the preparation and examination of expert viewpoints. The authors examine how far this approach is likely to command public confidence, and the extent to which the Inquiry pinned down the elusive concept of acceptable risk.

Sizewell B and environmental assessment

The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) won ministerial consent for a pressurised water reactor (PWR) following the Sizewell B public inquiry, but it failed to convince the inspector of its case for a new access road adjacent to an important wetland. The board was also criticised for its handling of local environmental and community impacts. In advance of the implementation of the European Community Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, the Sizewell B experience provides important lessons regarding the need for comprehensive environmental appraisal of major projects. The structure of future big public inquiries should be modified to take these lessons into account as well as to establish adequate local consultative arrangements. Most of the revenue provided by the Board via local rates cannot be spent by the local authorities concerned. The matter of ensuring that some at least of local rates paid by the CEGB is channelled back to the communities most in need of extra revenue, also requires u...

Safety and Public Trust

This exchange between Mr Brooke and Stephen Reed, Mayor of Harrisburg Pennsylvania, the community most immediately affected by the notorious TMI incident encapsulates the motivations behind much of the examination before the Sizewell B Inquiry with regard to the safety aspects of the CEGB’s application. The Inspector and his Assessors knew that the Inquiry could not examine the safety case in depth (261, 99A). They had neither the resources nor the expertise to do that. In any case, the public inquiry is not designed to undertake such a task, which is the function of the statutory licensing proceedings. The Generating Board itself only chose to present what it called the ‘highlights’ of its mammoth documentation on safety aspects in its Statement of Case and Proofs of Evidence. The totality of the safety case ran to 26 volumes and over three hundred supporting documents. Yet these were for only one stage, the pre-construction safety review, of what is essentially a continuing and evolving process (CEGB, P.10, 3).

The Tactics of the Sizewell B Inquiry

This chapter concentrates on how the Inquiry went about its tasks of reporting fully, fairly and thoroughly to the Secretary of State. While our central theme will be to emphasise the innovative and investigatory aspects of the Inquiry tactics or working practices, we stress that these elements were built onto and indeed were in a sense an extension of, the more conventional adversarial procedure and legal formalities found in the mainsteam of British public inquiries. These processes have been described in Chapters 2 and 3.

The Appraisal of Need and Economics

There is no more damning indictment of a major construction proposal than successfully to argue that it is not required at all, or that there are other means of providing the same benefits claimed by the proponents, means that are both cheaper and more socially acceptable. These are the ‘need’ and ‘economics’ critiques that have become commonplace in inquiries into major projects. Such accusations against energy development proposals were raised at both the Windscale and Belvoir Inquiries though not officially regarded as matters relevant for consideration by authorising ministers.

Uranium, Plutonium and Decommissioning

The nuclear fuel cycle is conventionally used to describe the life history of uranium fuel from mining to refining and enrichment, to fuel fabrication, fission, reprocessing and eventual disposal. We concentrate here on only four related areas, namely uranium mining, reprocessing and the alleged linkage between civil nuclear fuel use and its deployment or diversion into military weapons, the transportation of irradiated fuel, and the decommis-sioning of spent reactors. Figure 8.1 illustrates how these topics connect to the nuclear fuel cycle. The nature of the topics discussed in this chapter is significant. They raise profound moral and political issues. The Inquiry broke new grounds by dealing with such issues and the objecting groups undoubtedly used the Inquiry as a political forum. They also exploited the investigatory nature of the Inquiry to extract information and concessions from the Board. The pattern of evidence is illustrated in Figure 8.2.

The Procedures and Calendar of the Sizewell B Inquiry

The conduct of most public inquiries is governed by statutory rules of procedure or at least a code of practice. For the Sizewell B Inquiry, the Electricity Generating Stations and Overhead Lines (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1981 (the 1981 Rules), were promulgated as the Inquiry itself was being established. These rules, like all inquiries procedure rules, are drafted to provide only a broad outline. The most important rule is Rule 8(1) which states that ‘Except as otherwise provided in these rules, the procedure at the inquiry shall be such as the appointed person shall in his discretion determine’. Given the backing of the sponsoring department, the Inspector has the scope to innovate and fashion the procedures as appropriate.

Setting the Scene for the Sizewell B PWR

The application by the CEGB to seek consent from the Secretary of State for Energy to build Britain’s first pressurised water reactor promoted a major engineering project of awesome complexity, the successful construc-tion of which set the pattern for British electricity policy for the life of at least two Parliaments. The Sizewell B decision was therefore an intensely political matter, the more so because of the post-Chernobyl atmosphere in which it was finally taken. Sizewell B began as a bipartisan reactor, but will be constructed as purely a Conservative Party project. Sizewell B was also the outcome of energy and economic policies, many of which had little or nothing to do with nuclear power per se.