Waverley Railway (Scotland) Bill Committee, 31 Jan 2005

Meeting date: Monday, January 31, 2005

Official Report 88KB pdf

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Late Objection (Consideration)

Agenda item 2 is consideration of a late objection, on which the committee has received a paper. I invite members to comment on the objection.

I find myself in an odd situation. I support Scottish Natural Heritage's point that we should have the most rigorous assessment possible of the environmental impact of what is obviously a substantial transport infrastructure scheme. However, having read through the papers that are before us, I cannot see any reason why SNH has lodged its objection late in the day. There needs to be consistency in how we deal with objectors, not only in this committee but in other private bill committees. I have a bit of knowledge of that, because two such committees are dealing with bills that affect my constituency. I know how other committees have treated individual residents and small residents groups when they have submitted late objections. Those individuals and groups, which do not have the back-up that SNH has, have been told, "Unless you have very good reasons for this objection being late, we will not hear it."

I am reassured that the issues about which SNH is concerned, such as the adequacy of its communication with the promoter, the adequacy of the environmental statement and the need for rigorous assessment of the impact on the environment, will be considered both generally and specifically when we take evidence from the organisation. Given that, and for the sake of consistency, we should not accept the late objection, with the proviso that when SNH comes to give evidence to us later in the process, it will be able to raise those issues with us and we will be able to check that the promoter has been engaging in meaningful dialogue with it. SNH has concerns about that and it is not alone; such concerns have also been expressed in relation to other bills. That might be a signal to other organisations that, even if they are in doubt about whether to lodge an objection to a private bill, they should lodge the objection sooner rather than later.

The Parliament should not set a precedent by accepting a late objection from SNH for no particularly strong reason, given that we do not accept such objections from individuals and small residents groups. We must try to ensure that the process is consistent. We should ensure that we hear from SNH in due course and we should send the promoter the message that from now on we want it to engage in meaningful dialogue with SNH on this serious issue.

I agree with Margaret Smith, who makes the case well. Although, like her, I believe that SNH probably raises a number of issues of which we should take cognisance, I do not understand why the issues had to be brought to our attention in the form of an objection to the bill. If SNH wanted to lodge an objection, it could have done so earlier.

To some extent, we have been delayed in accepting objections and we have taken on a number of late objections, but there seems to be no need to accept an objection from SNH at the 11th hour, particularly because SNH will have ample opportunity to make its case in evidence to the committee. It is essential that SNH gives evidence. If the organisation has a problem concerning communication with the bill's promoter, we should draw attention to that, to ensure that problems do not continue. However, we are asked to accept the objection simply because SNH says that it had problems in talking to the promoter and was left with no option but to try to lodge an objection. I do not accept that; SNH could have used other approaches.

I have little to add to that. I agree that the issue is valid, but if it is valid now it was equally valid four, five or six months ago and an objection could have been lodged then. Like my colleagues, I do not think that we should accept the comments as a late objection. However, we should send a clear message to the promoter that we do not consider that there has been adequate dialogue with SNH—SNH makes a valid point about that. When we call SNH to give evidence to the committee, which I am sure that we will do because the organisation will be a key witness, we can ascertain whether the promoter has improved dialogue after receiving the committee's comments.

The committee is fairly unanimous that the objection from SNH should not be allowed to proceed to consideration stage. We do not accept that it is a valid objection, but we expect the promoter and SNH to enter into dialogue. Evidence from SNH will be important in our consideration, particularly of the environmental statement, and we look forward to hearing from the organisation.

The committee does not agree that the objection should be allowed to proceed. Therefore agenda item 3—preliminary consideration of objections—falls. We will therefore move to item 4, which we agreed to take in private. Any decisions that we take will be minuted, so they will be a matter of public record.

Meeting continued in private until 17:06