HOUSE OF LORDS SESSION 2010-11 THE LEGISLATIVE REFORM () ORDER 2011 REPLY OF 2ND PETITIONER TO REPRESENTATIONS OF SECRETARY OF STATE MADE TO THE HYBRID INSTRUMENTS COMMITTEE

0. I, Dr Michael John Pelling, 2nd Petitioner, make this Reply to the Representations of the Secretary of State to the Hybrid Instruments Committee, so far as affecting my own Petition dated and lodged 4 April 2011.

1. PRELIMINARY The "Table of Main Issues Raised by Petitioners" at the end of the Secretary of State's submissions is inaccurate since the numbering in the 1st column of her own Representations Paragraphs goes wrong from "Traffic and transportation" onwards. I shall use the correct numbering from the body of her submissions. More seriously, a number of instances of issues raised by me in numbered paragraphs of my Petition have been omitted from the Table 4th column and the corresponding submissions. There must be added to the citations of Petitions the following:-

Precedent for encroachment on Flats (14-17): Pelling 7(4) & 7(15) Scale of opposition to LRO (18): Pelling 7(10) Traffic and transportation (20): Pelling 7(2) Site selection (27): Pelling 7(3) & 7(5) & 7(11) Design related issues (28): Pelling 7(2) & 7(14) Loss of open space for recreational activities (32): Pelling 7(2) & 7(14) Noise (35-36): Pelling 7(2).

2. SUBSTANTIAL GROUNDS OF COMPLAINT SO216(6)(a) I reject the Secretary of State's tendentious categorisation (her §§6-10) of many issues raised by me as not falling within SO216(6)(a) but rather within SO216(6)(b) or SO216(6)(c). Each of the issues constitutes substantial grounds of complaint and of course while an individual issue in isolation may be considered less serious than some others I submit that I am entitled also to have the issues raised considered collectively or cumulatively and that there is no doubt then that they constitute substantial grounds of complaint.

3. MATTERS NOT REQUIRING FURTHER INQUIRY SO216(6)(b) The Secretary of State's argument at §7 is specious. Because a matter has been the subject of a first planning decision, that is not a reason to oust Parliamentary consideration, especially when there has been no planning appeal and public inquiry. Parliament is not bound by the Redbridge decision. Planning is not an exact science where the conclusions could be regarded as objective and unimpeachable, but involves an exercise of subjective discretion by Councillors who will have their own values, agendas and prejudices. Parliament is supreme and I would submit duty bound to exercise its own discretion here. Two other Boroughs, Waltham Forest and Newham, have opposed the LRO and would not have granted planning permission. I am also advised that the home addresses of all of the members of the LB Redbridge Regulatory Committee that made the decision, with one exception, lie outside the North Circular. The exception lives just inside it but in the north of Wanstead, far from the Flats. None of the Councillors of the Wanstead Ward were on the Committee. Living far from the Flats it is not surprising that they cared little for the damage that will result if the Police have their way and perhaps some of them thought it would not be popular electorally to be seen to be standing in the way of the Olympic juggernaut.

4. FAILURE TO USE OPPORTUNITIES FOR INQUIRY INTO COMPLAINTS SO216(6)(c) The Secretary of State's argument at §8 is intriguing: Petitioners are damned for not making their complaints and submissions to Redbridge's Planning Committee, but if they do so then (§7) they are equally damned because Redbridge's decision is decisive and no further inquiry is required! However, given the very discretionary nature of the planning decision in this instance, no criticism can be made of anyone who declined to avail himself (including myself) of the opportunity to take part in the Redbridge planning process. My address was not included in the list of Redbridge occupier consultees, which did not encourage me to think Redbridge would have much regard to any complaint of mine. Further, I was well aware that many others were making their own objections to Redbridge, in particular from the Save Wanstead Flats Campaign Group or individual members of it (I am also a member), and my own objections would have largely duplicated others' work and their limitations. My Petition to the House of Lords, however, involves other lines of attack on the LRO which would not have been appropriate purely in the context of a planning application. In all the circumstances therefore, I submit that my Petition should not be penalised on account of my not filing any objections with Redbridge to the planning application.

5. Precedent for encroachment on Wanstead Flats (§§14-17) Once again the Secretary of State seeks to limit Parliament by claiming the precedent argument is inadmissible. A precedent of future development and interference with Wanstead Flats (and the Forest generally) certainly does go to the merits of this particular proposal and Parliament or Select Committee cannot be prevented, nor should be, from considering all the implications. Further, while the Secretary of State correctly observes (§15) that there have been previous encroachments, I addressed that point in my Petition Para.7(15). The current proposal is of a different kind for which there is no comparable past precedent. Nor in the various examples given by the Secretary of State was an LRO used, but in every case there had to be prior primary legislation and hence proper Parliamentary scrutiny. Even if the Secretary of State in some of those cases acted by statutory instrument, that depended on prior primary enabling legislation creating specific powers affecting the Forest, which is lacking in the instant case. The Secretary of State is attempting to use the general powers of the 2006 Act to get an LRO through affecting the Forest, but quite unlike the Acts she refers to in §15 there is nothing in the 2006 Act to suggest it would ever be used in the way now proposed (see numerous criticisms in my Petition) to undermine key sections of the Epping Forest Act 1878, and which would not have been in Parliament's contemplation at the time of the passage of the 2006 Act. Finally, the Secretary of State herself in the Home Office Consultation Document sought to allay fears that a precedent for future abuse of the Forest might be set, so having herself raised that issue it is not open to her now to pretend it is inadmissible. By using an LRO instead of relying upon specific clearly defined and limited powers in Acts such as those referred to in her §15, the Secretary of State is herself setting a dangerous precedent whereby virtually anything that suits the Government of the day could be done to Epping Forest by the device of an LRO sans Parliamentary scrutiny.

6. Scale of opposition to LRO (§18) The Secretary of State fails to appreciate that petitioning the House of Lords is not an easy or familiar thing for most people to do, and that the vast majority of the 58565 persons referred to would have been unaware of the Home Office Consultation. I would think that on the record of past petitions in hybrid instrument cases, submission of 8 Petitions does indicate a high degree of concern and controversy. Indeed, 2 of those Petitions were from Newham LB Council and Waltham Forest LB Council, both Olympic host Boroughs, on behalf of all the residents in those Boroughs. It is also fallacious to measure degree of controversy or scale of opposition crudely by the number of objections, since the strength of the objections and the nature of the proposal itself are key factors. Many of those actually made aware of the Police and Government's plans have objected in strongest terms, and as I have argued in my Petition, the unprecedented use of an LRO to destroy key primary legislation, which I have said is an abuse of the 2006 Act, is ipso facto highly controversial and indeed in my view a constitutional matter.

7. The Hybrid Instrument Committee should rather consider this report from the East End Howler, an East End free working class news sheet, Issue No.8, that: "The Save Wanstead Flats Campaign invited the Police to a public meeting on October 6th [2010]; 300 people turned up, filling the hall, and subjecting the and the City of London Corporation to a barrage of informed and intelligent questions covering accountability, cost, the environment, security and traffic. Unsurprisingly, the vote on the proposal at the end of the meeting was unanimously against". Further, in relation to the Redbridge planning application, the Regulatory Committee Order of Business for 24 February 2011 records at p.27 (see Tab 2 of Secretary of State's Representations) that Redbridge had received a "Petition purporting to be signed by 1640 residents objecting to the proposal on grounds that will set a dangerous precedent by attempting to amend Epping Forest Act 1878 and demand proper explanation of how Wanstead Flats was chosen over Olympic Site itself and why there has been absolutely no consultation with local residents". I therefore maintain my submission that the LRO is "highly controversial".

8. VIRES, PROCEDURAL IRREGULARITY, REASONABLENESS I think it would be appropriate for a Select Committee to consider all aspects of the complaints made by the Petitioner together. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 was and remains a controversial and constitutionally worrying Act and if I am right in claiming that what is proposed by this LRO is a novel use, or abuse, of the Act then I see no reason why Parliament should not consider these concerns now rather than wait for the inevitable Judicial Review. While it may be convention for Parliament to not intervene but to leave to the Court judicially reviewable matters, I would suggest this case is exceptional, not being a typical statutory instrument but one proposed under the remarkable and controversial 2006 Act and taking the application of that Act to a new level, so that it would be desirable for Parliament to set its own house in order sooner rather than later or have it done by the Court. In short, I am inviting the House of Lords to say now that we shall have no truck with this kind of back-door legislation which offends all reasonable constitutional and democratic principle.

9. Further, there is a time aspect since with the Olympics fast approaching, it would be desirable to have the LRO thrown out in the near future by Parliament, rather than extend time by affirming the LRO and then having it struck down by the Court at some later and uncertain date. If the Police have to look for a new site then the sooner they know that the better, in everyone's interest; or alternatively if the Secretary of State is to introduce primary legislation to amend the Epping Forest Act 1878 then again the sooner that is got underway the better.

DR MICHAEL JOHN PELLING 7 MAY 2011