Whitehall Watch

Moving into Number Ten, Prime Minister Gordon Brown inherits a three-piece suite of new policies on planning, energy and waste. Peter Madden picks out the plums and points out the pitfalls.

The tail end of Tony Blair’s tenure saw a flurry of major policy announcements on sustainability issues. In the space of four days in May, the government launched White Papers on planning, energy and waste. Sewing up these three major areas leaves Gordon Brown less room to stamp his own green mark.

The government is trying to tread a careful line between competitiveness and greenness, while also placating ‘Middle England’. All three documents, however, proved politically controversial.

The planning proposals rightly received the roughest ride from environmentalists. Friends of the Earth warned that they will “fast-track massive and damaging new developments, increase UK carbon dioxide emissions, and reduce the right of local people to object to schemes that threaten their communities”. The Treasury - whose fingerprints are all over this White Paper - takes a very blinkered view, judging the planning system in narrow productivity terms. But reducing democratic control of how we develop our country, what it looks like and so on, will surely only store up problems for later. Major schemes may face direct action protests instead of planning objections.

“The government is trying to tread a careful line between competitiveness, greenness and placating Middle England.”

The waste proposals were broadly welcomed by the greens, although most would have wanted more ambitious recycling targets. But they took a roasting from the tabloids. Even though environment secretary David Miliband shied away from introducing a nationwide ‘pay-as-you-throw’ charge, the Daily Mail prophesied “waste wars across Britain” as local authorities bring in their own schemes. These could involve penalties of up to £50 on households who don’t recycle - funding rebates for those who do. 

I think the government’s obsession with household waste is missing the point: this is only about 10% of total waste and sits near the bottom of the waste hierarchy.

In the Energy White Paper there’s a huge amount to welcome. Real-time displays on new meters will let people see what they are consuming. There’s a proposal to double energy suppliers’ obligations to deliver energy efficiency measures to customers. A new cap and trade ‘Carbon Reduction Commitment’ will be introduced for large commercial organisations such as banks, supermarkets and large local authorities. The government is also ‘banding’ the Renewables Obligation to benefit offshore wind, wave, tidal and other emerging technologies.

The most controversial issue is the role of nuclear power. In the 2003 Energy White Paper, the government was quite sceptical. Now it is keener on a new generation of nuclear power stations. Its change of heart is partly due to worries about security of energy supplies, and partly because climate change has moved up the political agenda.

On balance, I remain a sceptic. I think nuclear power will end up costing us much more than we are promised. Industry estimates have proved singularly unreliable in the past, and there is also a series of precedents for the public ending up footing the bill whenever serious problems occur. A new nuclear programme will require lots of political effort, and may divert attention away from energy efficiency and renewables. It will reinforce a centralised supply infrastructure, rather than the diverse, resilient, flexible and cheap solutions we need.

Tough early action on climate change may be delayed if people think nuclear offers some kind of ‘get out of jail free’ card. But new nuclear power stations are unlikely to come on stream much before 2020. Even then, they’ll account for only a small percentage of overall energy needs and carbon savings, whilst still leaving us reliant on imported gas for our heating. A new generation of nuclear power stations risks being an expensive distraction.

How will this play politically? A recent poll for the Guardian showed 49% of the general public opposing nuclear power, with support standing at around 45%. However, the real pain will come over where to. Sea level rise and political opposition in Scotland and Wales will rule out many sites where there are already nuclear power stations. So the government will have to support locations near places like Oxford, Bristol and Brighton that are close to the major population areas and have good grid connections.

As the government tries to tread the line, has it got the balance right? It is certainly showing more ambition on climate change. But in important elements of these three big policy areas - pushing through big planning schemes, promoting energy from waste and supporting new nuclear power stations - it risks provoking the kind of alliances between environmentalists and Middle England that were so powerful in the early 1990s.

24 June 2007

Peter Madden