This afternoon Nadine used the weekly Prime Minister's Question Time to put a question to David Cameron about the disgraceful procedure by which the IPC has come to its decision to allow Covanta to build a waste incinerator in Mid-Bedfordshire.

The exchange is repeated here for those unlucky enough to have missed the lunchtime broadcast of the session:

Nadine: "The Infrastructure Planning Commission has made one decision—to grant planning permission for the giant American waste company Covanta to build a 600,000 tonne incinerator in Mid Bedfordshire. Thousands of people in Bedfordshire responded to the consultation saying that they do not want this. The small print of the decision says that the decision is subject to special parliamentary procedure. Will the Prime Minister please let the people of Bedfordshire know that this Government are not like the previous Government, that we listen to local concerns and that we will ensure that this monstrous, rubbish-guzzling atmosphere-polluting incinerator will not be imposed upon the people of Bedfordshire?"

The Prime Minister replied: "My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are difficult planning decisions that have to be made, but what the Government have done is made sure that the planning system is more democratic and reports to Parliament, and that Ministers have to take decisions and be accountable. I cannot speak for how those Ministers have to make those decisions. They have to make them in their own way, but we have ended the idea of the vast quango with absolutely no accountability, as my hon. Friend rightly says."

(Posted by Nadine's Parliamentary Researcher)