Recommendation 1

We find it immensely frustrating that the Government chose to act in a way which appeared to acquiesce to our requests for additional time to consider its draft National Policy Statements on Energy but only after we had compressed our schedule and carried out two oral evidence sessions on the same day. Obviously, had we been afforded the courtesy of notification of the arrangements in advance, we could, and would, have waited until the end of the public consultation period before commencing using the information arising from that process to inform our oral evidence sessions and create the added value, by test and challenge, that the process was designed to encourage. In the event, the additional time, while it allowed a less rushed consideration of the evidence before us, did not provide significant opportunity to broaden, or deepen, the scrutiny we could bring to bear as it came too late for us to change the questions that we were able to put to our witnesses. (Conclusion, Paragraph 6)