The Fingleton Review has tempted the government to scrap hard won environmental protections – Inside track

This post is by Sarah Finch, a climate campaigner, who won a landmark legal victory in 2024 over greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel developments.

When the economist John Fingleton and his taskforce published their review of civil and defence nuclear regulation last November, including recommendations for speeding up the delivery of new nuclear power stations, the prime minister said he would “apply these lessons across the entire industrial strategy”.

Yet Fingleton’s 47 recommendations include changes to the Habitats Regulations that weaken wildlife protection, scrapping the law protecting National Parks and National Landscapes (though the government can’t name a single National Park where regulations are holding up nuclear developments). Wildlife charities are mobilising to oppose these, and I support their campaigns.

I’ve seen less discussion of two other recommendations, which stood out for me.

Fingleton’s review recommends scrapping the landmark Finch judgment
Recommendation 15 tells the government to “legislate to overturn the Finch judgment for low-carbon infrastructure”. I can’t help taking this one personally. The ‘Finch judgment’ was the result of a case I brought, on behalf of the Weald Action Group, challenging the decision to permit 20 years of oil production at Horse Hill in Surrey.

The case centred on whether it was legal for the county council to allow this development without assessing the greenhouse gas emissions that would occur when the oil from Horse Hill was eventually burned. The Supreme Court ruled that these downstream emissions must be included in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process for new fossil fuel developments.

The ruling was widely welcomed as a victory for common sense. It brought clarity to an area of law that had previously been unclear. It set a precedent that has led to other climate court wins. And it prompted the government to rewrite its guidance on the assessment of climate impacts of new offshore oil and gas developments.

The fears are groundless
Given that our case concerned oil wells, why does Fingleton see it as a blocker to new nuclear infrastructure? Fingleton’s fear is “the Finch judgement risks forcing developers to produce submissions covering the entire nuclear lifecycle, from mining to spent fuel disposal, even though a nuclear power station does not release greenhouse gases during normal operation.”

His fears are groundless. He’s right that EIAs may be required along the supply chain. This may already be required in contexts other than planning: the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is all about measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions, and nothing to do with the Finch judgment.

But there’s no need for developers to repeat assessments that have already been done. The EIA Regulations (2014 Amendments) are clear: “The developer shall, with a view to avoiding duplication of assessments, take into account the available results of other relevant assessments … in preparing the environmental impact assessment report.”

Given the alleged benefit of nuclear power is that it is low carbon, I find it surprising that Fingleton wants to protect developers from having to be clear about their climate impacts. This would give them a firm basis for arguing the pro-climate credentials of nuclear energy by allowing the much lower greenhouse gas emissions to be taken into account, in comparison to energy produced from fossil fuels.

It says legal challenges should be riskier for claimants
Legal challenges are another issue that worries Fingleton and that I have strong feelings about.

Recommendation 20 is about making judicial reviews more difficult and riskier for claimants by removing cost protections, “if a judge deems that the judicial review process is being misused”, and limiting legal challenges to Nationally Strategic Infrastructure Projects to a “single bite of the cherry”.

I was able to bring the case on behalf of the Weald Action Group because of the cost cap enshrined in the Aarhus Convention. Had we faced the prospect of paying the other side’s full costs, we would never have embarked on the case. Our application for judicial review was refused twice and we went to the Court of Appeal. We took several bites of that cherry and went on to win a landmark judgment.

The PM wants to apply the proposals far and wide
The prime minister wants to apply Fingleton’s recommendations across all large developments in the Industrial Strategy, even though Fingleton himself said that “nuclear is sufficiently specific… I think the more you try to apply the same standard across all of infrastructure, the more challenging it might be.”

In his enthusiastic adoption of proposals to rip up environmental safeguards, Starmer is showing the same misunderstanding he showed over the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Nature – and regulations to protect it – are not barriers to the kind of growth we need. There is nothing to be gained from fast-tracking developments if we destroy our environment in the process.

Photo by Tom Wheatley on Unsplash