Not to be outdone, Suffolk County Council, on whose flat shoreland stands
Sizewell B, Britain’s first pressurised-water reactor, has announced a public
inquiry into the proposal to build a replica of the PWR on the site. The
inquiry that preceded the building of Sizewell B resulted in a report which
ran to eight volumes. As chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Energy
for most of its existence, I am not hostile to the necessary procedures
for examining such issues, advising governments or informing public opinion.
The select committee conducted a number of inquiries into nuclear power,
and in preparing for them I read hundreds of memoranda, books and reports.
I was forced to conclude that at this rate the industry would soon sink
under the weight of inquiries. It seemed that Britain was spending more
on public inquiries than some of its competitors were investing in their
nuclear research and development.

The direct costs of each inquiry are large. The indirect costs, in terms
of delay and lost commercial and technical opportunities, are virtually
unquantifiable, though they run into billions. This was confirmed on a recent
visit to Sizewell B by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, which
was told that the prospect of overseas sales of Britain’s superb PWR technology,
which is probably the safest known, could be severely prejudiced.

Most disturbing is evidence that the analysis and conclusions of one
public inquiry are ignored by its successors. Each new inquiry feels obliged
to re-examine every aspect of policy, irrespective of the evidence, argument
and conclusions already published. This applies not only to the British
documentation but to that of other major industrial countries too, France,
Japan and the US being the most conspicuous examples. The huge report from
the US Committee on Nuclear Energy and Alternative Strategies, for instance,
covered virtually every aspect of nuclear power costs, risks and policy
implications. Most of its conclusions remain valid. And yet most of the
articles in a recent issue of the Commons’ House Magazine (16 May) are written
on the assumption that none of the questions which has been re-examined
ad nauseam in the past two or three decades can be taken as read. It is
as if the agenda for every nuclear inquiry must include the agenda of all
its predecessors.

This is not to deny that at a time when there has been dramatic progress
in nuclear science and technology, some questions require periodic re-examination;
the criteria by which judgments on energy policy should be made are constantly
changing. But is it necessary for every aspect of nuclear power to be re-examined
by a cascade of public inquiries every time the nuclear industry proposes
to build a reactor, especially when it is virtually identical to its predecessor
and on a site which has already been licensed?

Even if the answer is yes, can it really be argued that a local authority
should have the right – or indeed obligation imposed by law – to re-examine
the technical fundamentals, and the implications for a national energy policy
implications, not to mention decommissioning costs? And this every time
the industry proposes to enlarge its nuclear capacity. Nuclear power has
a high public profile and there is a constant need to be informed and reassured.
But the answer to my questions must be no. First, the cost is prohibitive.
Secondly, opinion is invariably drawn from the same technical authorities.
Thirdly, such inquiries are grist to the mill of antinuclear fanatics, most
of whom are oblivious to the real scope, weight and consequences of any
realistic alternatives. There is, of course, an argument that in a democracy
protestors who claim ‘not in my back yard’ – the NIMBYs – must have their
say. But should they influence matters other than the location of nuclear
installations, the only legitimate subject for so-called ‘site specific’
inquiries?

Most of these issues were examined in 1986 by the House of Lords’ inquiry
into nuclear power. Some disturbing evidence was given and important recommendations
made on the straitjacket within which the British nuclear industry was expected
to operate. One piece of evidence and two conclusions of that report stand
out. The evidence was given by the then chairman of the Central Electricity
Generating Board (CEGB), Sir Walter, now Lord, Marshall. ‘While we have
been discussing one single PWR the French are making progress,’ he observed.
‘In 1978 they had four PWRs; in 1979, when the Conservative government decided
to build the Sizewell PWR, they had six PWRs; when the Sizewell inquiry
opened in 1983 they had 23. . . today they have 37. . . before we have any
chance whatever of getting Sizewell actually to operate they will have 55.
That is called getting on with the job.’

The committee’s first conclusion (Para 222) was that: ‘British Nuclear
Fuels, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the CEGB and the Electricity Council
all wish to see the planning procedure reformed.’ The second (Para 223)
was that: ‘Evidence showed that the anti-nuclear movement. . . was also
dissatisfied with them. . . Friends of the Earth said. . . we must overcome
this problem of having huge public inquiries every time. . . we should not
go through this again.’ All of this endorsed the energy select committee’s
conclusion in 1980 that ‘future public inquiries should be site-specific
and need not reopen the wider issues of principle covered at this first
¾±²Ô±ç³Ü¾±°ù²â.’

Readers may judge the result for themselves. The Department of Energy
has been abolished. Inquiry succeeds inquiry at a pace which can only prejudice
the British nuclear industry’s capacity, prospects and performance. The
nation can ill afford this public policy fiasco, which exacts far too great
a price for the illumination of public opinion. If our democracy system
is to serve the 21st century, the public inquiry system is the first of
many institutions requiring radical reform. Otherwise we risk finding ourselves
in a backyard which may be ‘green’ but will have little else to offer.
The parish pump and its NIMBYs will have triumphed, but the power to work
it will cost the earth.

Ian Lloyd is a former Conservative member of parliament for Havant,
Hampshire.

I have never believed that the allocation of blame for such situations
is a particularly constructive or fruitful activity, though it appeals to
those who prefer to deal with personality and individuals rather than with
causes and effects. That is a part of the human condition from which scientists,
despite their rigorous training in objectivity, are not immune. But if parliament
does not generally reflect the importance, or indeed the potential, of scientific
endeavour or the scientific method, the cause must surely be sought in the
fundamentals of the democratic process. It is the party machines which choose
political candidates. It is the electorate which supports or rejects this
choice, and if there is tragically insufficient emphasis on science at Westminster
then this reflects the general valuation placed on science by the community
as a whole when it constructs and operates its mechanism for providing itself
with effective and relevant parliamentary government and scrutiny.

In recent years parliament, as a result of an important initiative by
the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, has established a new mechanism
to provide a fairly rudimentary procedure for technology assessment, in
the form of a Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´,
20 May). This will open an important door into Westminster for the scientific
community as a whole. If this opportunity is seized as fully as it should
be there will doubtless be a visible impact on the quality and relevance
of debate which should turn on, or be strongly influenced by, scientific
judgment, especially where that judgment is itself unanimous.

So far I have assumed that we shall be working within the existing system
and that this system will evolve, perhaps slowly and painfully, at least
to the point when it will become standard practice for constituency selection
committees to ask new candidates: ‘What is your view on Britain’s science
policy and the balance of its R&D?’ But there is a much more important
question which must now be asked, partly, but not exclusively, because of
the vast acceleration in the output and application of scientific knowledge
over an ever widening area of policy. That question is whether there should
be a much more rigorous attempt, not least by the scientific community itself,
to evaluate, modify and adapt the democratic system, which was developed
by Athens, Rome and Westminster to an age when science, instead of being
an occasional and spasmodic input into human affairs, has become continuous,
pervasive and, in some directions, threatening in the sense that immense
power can now clearly be seen to follow particular forms of successful scientific
endeavour and adhere to those who have the wit and imagination to apply
it. There can be no doubt, for example, that the technology of the hydrogen
bomb has completely transformed the whole character of the balance of power
and the traditional pattern of relationships between nation states. In a
more subtle way the influence of genetic engineering may well be even greater.

I do not believe that we can safely conclude that parliamentary institutions
have evolved sufficiently to monitor and control this experimental application
of science to human affairs. We still think in largely conventional political
ways about these matters. Very little effort is made to apply the scientific
method to the mechanism of the political structure developed largely by
and for tribal communities locked in sporadic conflict over the control
of territory and resources. If the greenhouse effect has demonstrated anything
it is that this mechanism is likely to prove gravely deficient when required
to address a global problem which has massive technical and political overtones.

The solution of these problems cannot safely be left to the political
community, however generous and complete the scientific input may be, from
the sidelines as it were. Something much more constructive, influential
and continuous is needed than occasional seminars, well-presented television
documentaries or complex memoranda which attempt to bridge the gulf between
the trained scientific mind and the political mind which, however rigorously
trained in the humanities, inherits a thinly veiled contempt for expertise
which it cannot understand or criticise.

What I am suggesting is that our democratic political institutions will
need to be reformulated in a fairly fundamental way if they are to prove
relevant to the global challenges, solutions, resource allocations, administration
and policy evaluations which will be required if the human race is to cope
with such problems as pollution, the pop ulation explosion, the consequences
of industrial development in the Third World, AIDS, massive shifts in energy
sources and the containment of risks inher ent in predictable and large-scale
shifts in political power.

This awe-inspiring mix of challenges is unlikely to be surmounted without
the maximum contribution of rationality which human society can muster and
apply. I equate much of that rationality with the scientific method, even
if the necessary discipline of the laboratory cannot ever be applied to
social or political problems. This is when the politician must turn to the
scientist for help and politicians can do this only if they are convinced
that the scientists’ contribution is necessary, unique and indispensable.
At the same time, scientists must cast aside their fashionable contempt
for the political process and, recognising its deficiencies, go all out
to reduce them and limit their influence at least in the most vital areas
of policy.

Parliamentary democracies will, of course, resist changes of the kind
I have outlined with all the awe-inspiring and depressing tenacity which
all human institutions exhibit when threatened by a challenge to their basic
assumptions. Similarly, practitioners of the ‘hard’ sciences tend to be
somewhat contemptuous of, and disinterested in, the applications of intellectual
power and processes in areas of policy. But if parliamentary democracies
are to become more competent in the field of science, science must bring
its unique genius and power to bear on the procedures and mechanism of parliamentary
government. The scientific method, at its most rigorous, must now make a
greater and more sustained contribution to civil government. If it fails
to do so, there is a great danger that the civil order will itself fail
to sustain those conditions which protect and invigorate scientific inquiry
and the calm, considered and beneficial application of its results across
all frontiers.

I do not call on scientists to alter significantly the main thrust of
their endeavours. This would be self-defeating. But they must develop a
greater awareness of the crucial consequences of their work and contribute
more forcibly to the political judgments which are the inevitable accompaniment
of its application.

Parliaments must be developed, not abolished. But scientists must be
careful not to terrify the incumbents. They must work with power rather
than against it and promote, whenever possible, a convergence of scientific
understanding, interest and public policy. The criterion is a simple one:
will the measure reduce the influence of dogma and promote the influence
of reason? If so, let’s try it.

It will be, as the great Duke said at Waterloo, ‘hard pounding, gentlemen’.
The parliamentary horse may choose not to drink, even if its trough is filled
with the purest water of scientific truth. But if the trough is, or remains,
empty, or filled with the green slime of bias and vested interest, we must
not blame the horse.

We now have, at most, about a quarter of a century in which to meet
this challenge and devise the political equivalent of what the physicists
have termed a ‘quantum jump’. That is a very short period both in historical
and scientific terms. The stakes have never been higher and unless the full
resources of the scientific community are brought to bear, with a conviction
and tenacity which must be nothing less than ferocious, we shall certainly
put our civilisation at risk.

Sir Ian Lloyd is the Conservative MP for Havant in Hampshire and deputy
chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.