huge amount of ‘thinking’ about where Ministers are with the project, the
options they have been looking at, what needs to be delivered to the public,
how, timescales, cost estimates, to provide context, which takes them straight
into the territory of s.35 that caters for situations where policy is still under
development.
(2) All of the information requested is wrapped up in the business case for this
project.
The HMLC is still under development and Ministers still need to make
decisions on the final policy direction. Therefore, the information
requested, being the business case for development of the site, relates
to the policy in question and will inform the final policy decision to be
taken by Ministers. Site selection, in particular, is still a live issue.
Whilst a site has been proposed, planning consent for construction of
the HMLC on the preferred site has not yet been granted and this
policy issue therefore remains live. If planning consent were to be
refused, the development as currently proposed in the business case,
could not proceed and Ministers would need to take major decisions
about the future direction of the project. 23. The Appellant is likely to be
fully aware that site selection is still a live issue because his actions have
contributed to this being the case. By way of brief chronology:
Depending on the Bill’s course and on whether planning consent is obtained,
the issue of where a new site may be, and when the HMLC will be
constructed, may be on the agenda once again. It is inaccurate to argue that
information in the current business case would not be relevant to a new decision:
i. If the Department was not able to proceed with the current
planning proposal, it is likely that it would want to explore
alternative schemes at the same site;
ii. ii. In any event, HMLC is not merely a construction project.
There are more issues at play than the construction of the
Memorial and Learning Centre. The business case for HMLC
also applies to the HMLC proposals for use, such as its
exhibition and learning programme content (as it is a learning
centre as well as a memorial). For instance, issues such as
following are being considered: how will the exhibition explain
the relevance of the Holocaust to Britain? Should it refer to
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