An energy company told the Court of Appeal today that it was the victim of bias, claiming that an MP unfairly influenced a planning decision.
Broadview Energy is challenging a ruling that said that the lobbying of ministers by MPs over planning matters is part and parcel of parliamentary democracy.
Broadview wants to build a five-turbine windfarm at Spring Farm Ridge between Greatworth and Helmdon in Northamptonshire but was refused permission in December 2014 by minister Kris Hopkins, acting on behalf of then communities secretary Eric Pickles. Hopkins was going against the advice of a planning inspector who backed the project.
Jeremy Pike, Broadview’s barrister, said today that Hopkins’ decision was biased because he had received correspondence from local MP Andrea Leadsome without disclosing it and met her in the House of Commons tea room, where she expressed her opposition to the scheme.
Pike told the three-judge panel that Hopkins should have disclosed the correspondence with Leadsome to the other parties involved in the planning application and he also should have refused to speak to her about the matter.
“This was a quasi-judicial decision that the minister was taking,” Pike said. “The decision maker was in no different situation than any other decision maker, not least an planning inspector, just because it is taking place within the confines of the Palace of Westminster.”
Pike said that Cranston J, who ruled against the company in the High Court last year, made a mistake. Cranston also refused Broadview permission to appeal, but that was overruled by Laws J, who said the argument was “arguable and potentially important on the duty of fairness owed by political decision makers in the planning field”.
Even so, Longmore LJ, one of the three appeals judges hearing the case, asked whether a minister is in the same position as a judge or planning inspector.
“If this court starts saying what can and cannot go on in the House of Commons tea room, I can rather see some objection to that,” he said.
Broadview Energy Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Court of Appeal (Longmore LJ, Lewison LJ, McCombe LJ)
Jeremy Pike (instructed by Eversheds LLP) for the claimant
Daniel Kolinsky QC (instructed by Government Legal Service) for the first defendant
Richard Honey (instructed by public access) for the third defendant
