NEW PRIME MINISTER Gordon Brown acted unlawfully during his first appearance at the despatch box for Prime Minister's Questions, according to lawyers acting for Greenpeace.
Following a High Court decision earlier this year, no government decision to support new nuclear power stations can lawfully be made before a public consultation has been carried out. However, during PMQs on Wednesday, Gordon Brown ignored the Court's ruling and sabotaged the ongoing consultation by stating that: "We have made the decision to continue with nuclear power."
In doing so, Brown has performed a public u-turn on his promise to listen to the people after little more than a week in power.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, lawyers for Greenpeace have asked him to "immediately and unreservedly withdraw the government's decision to support the building of a new generation of nuclear power stations."
In February, Mr Justice Sullivan ruled that the previous energy review, which backed new nuclear power stations, was not the ‘fullest public consultation' the Government had committed itself to before making a decision to back new nuclear power stations. The commitment had been made in the earlier energy white paper in 2003.
Mr Justice Sullivan said that the consultation exercise was "seriously flawed" and that the process was "manifestly inadequate and unfair" because insufficient information had been made available by the Government for consultees to make an "intelligent response".
John Sauven, director of Greenpeace, said: "Brown has ridden roughshod over a High Court decision. And, by publicly stating that he'd already come to a decision while carrying out what is now very obviously a sham consultation, he's acted unlawfully.
"Brown said he'd be a different kind of leader, that he'd listen to the British public, but after just a week in power he's said he doesn't care what people think about nuclear power, he's going for it regardless. We thought we'd seen the back of this kind of politics when Tony Blair left office."
For more information or a copy of the letter to Gordon Brown, please contact the Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255.
