Who represents Joe Public vs govt? Only one answer

On paper the Starmer government wants to be quite radical.  Sweep aside planning laws; aiming for impossible energy and housing targets, etc etc etc.  So there will be a load of Consultations coming down the pike – indeed, there are already.  And often very rushed, which isn’t just a tactic, it’s their mantra right now.

So: who responds for the ordinary punter?  In theory of course, absolutely anyone can respond.  But Joe Public ain’t gonna find his hand-written views reflected in the Conclusion of the exercise.  And lobby groups don’t always fare much better, although the smarter ones pick their fights and sometimes do OK.  

All the Regulators have some kind of very promising-looking “we are here to protect the public” statement on their “About” page, but again, that’s in theory.  In practice, (a) it’s often the Regulator itself that is doing the consultation; (b) they are all as political as Hell, and if they are responding to a Government department’s consultation exercise, they are hand-in-glove (or indeed hand-in-puppet) and not to be expected to be independent or neutral in any way, shape or form[1]; (c) right now, the Starmer government has given all Regulators etc an extra formal mandate, which is to Promote Growth.  And they immediately fired the bloke at the CMA who didn’t seem enthusiastic enough on this score, pour encourager les autres.[2]

Where, then, do we look for our defence?  There’s only one answer: it is the venerable Citizens’ Advice, which is a Statutory Consultee in many consultation exercises.  Not the organisation with the most prestige or biggest, best-paid professional HQ staffing, but in my experience (energy, of course) they do an heroic job.  Only they have consistently called out the nuclear power nonsenses.  It was they who absolutely, forensically skewered the outrageous Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon scam. Etc.  

Can they keep their heads above water during Starmer’s radical deluge?  It’ll be a tall order – and if they start looking like the resistance, they stand to get bulldozed themsleves.  Good luck to them – they may need it, just as we all need them.

ND     

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[1] This isn’t just cynicism and supposition, it’s a copper-bottomed fact, amply illustrated by FOI docs

[2] Maybe he was genuinely useless, I don’t know.  He was certainly the one they made an example of