Sizewell Nuclear Power Station

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:19 pm on 23 February 1987.

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Photo of Mr Eldon Griffiths Mr Eldon Griffiths , Bury St Edmunds 5:19, 23 February 1987

One of the most difficult tasks of any hon. Member is to strike a balance between what may be in the national interest and what many of his constituents perceive to be against their local interests. The Sizewell debate requires every hon. Member for Suffolk to wrestle with his conscience over the problem. For two of my colleagues, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who is in his place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord), who has studied the issue with the greatest keenness, the dilemma is especially acute. Their positions within the Government make it impossible for them at this stage to infonn their constituents of their views on a contentious local issue.

I have had the advantage of discussions with my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend and I know that they would agree with me if I start at local level and say that we were all concerned to read Sir Frank Layfield's comments in section F of his report. At paragraph 2.207 Sir Frank states: If Sizewell B were built., local people would have to accept serious drawbacks without any corresponding benefits. In an earlier passage, when discussing the site being within the Suffolk heritage coast, he states: The development of Sizewell B would be a massive intrusion into the area. When dealing with the access road, Sir Frank concluded at paragraph 2.187: the CEGB's evidence in support of its case … was weak. At paragraph 2.201—this is my final quotation on local matters—Sir Frank says: The new station would he a totally inappropriate intrusion into the Suffolk countryside … The detrimental visual effect … on the local landscape would be so great that unless the proposal is held to be justified in the national interest, consent should be refused. Any Suffolk Member is bound to take seriously Sir Frank's observations on these matters. I have therefore to say that I would not agree to consent being given, unless I were convinced that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would impose on the CEGB all the environmental and traffic conditions that are recommended by the Layfield report, together with an absolute requirement to leave no stone unturned to secure the safety of Sizewell inside as well as outside its reactors.

I turn now to the national interest. On behalf of what I conceive to be the majority of our people, I would resist all attempts to deny our country the advantages of nuclear power. I say that for five reasons.

First, nuclear energy is virtually guaranteed to be available for the foreseeable future while fossil fuels are not. The precise economics of Sizewell B remains to be determined and I do not envy my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State his task as he wrestles with the Layfield report's comments on that issue. In the long term, however, it makes no sense to believe that extracting coal from the bowels of the earth or oil from the North sea is a more cost-effective way of meeting our energy needs for the next century than tapping the energy that is available from uranium, and before long, possibly, from hydrogen. Coal and oil are limited fossil resources. Once they are depleted there will be no more. By contrast, nuclear power taps a virtually undepletable resource. There is no foreseeable limit to its availability.

Secondly, I believe that nuclear power is environmentally less offensive than the burning of oil or coal. Having had some responsibility for pollution control as an Environment Minister, I know that the acid rain that British is accused, rightly or wrongly, of pouring onto the forests of Scandinavia does not originate from our nuclear power stations. It comes from the CEGB's coal and oilfired plants. Neither does the carbonmonoxide or lead that can pollute the air arise from nuclear energy. They are byproducts of fossil fuels. Nuclear power is the cleanest energy available to us on a large scale. It makes no contribution to the so-called glasshouse effect that the burning of coal and oil fuels are thought to be creating.

Thirdly, I should not be a party to handicapping British industry and British homes with higher fuel costs, while our competitors can look forward to the comparatively lower costs that they may expect from the PWR reactors that are already in place or being built in virtually all of our main competitor industrial countries. There are about 500 nuclear reactors in operation or being built outside Britain. I have visited some of them and no doubt other hon. Members have done so too. About 308 of these reactors are PWRs. The French obtain 65 per cent. of their energy from PWRs, while the West Germans obtain 32 per cent., the Spanish 24 per cent., the Belgians 60 per cent., and the Swiss 40 per cent. Japan has recently embarked on a gigantic £420 billion programme to expand its nuclear powered production. The Soviet Union, post-Chernobyl, is also building scores of new reactors, despite its abundant supplies of coal and oil.

The high comparative costs of our fossil-based power in Britain could be one of the reasons why our goods, in recent years, have been priced out of some export markets. To that extent, our high-cost power has contributed to a loss of jobs. Our relatively high energy prices also represent a severe burden on the old and the poor. When we face the next perishing cold wave and Opposition Members demand that the Government take action to assist the old and the cold, let no one doubt at that time that the CEGB will be able to meet our extra demands for power only if it keeps on stream the nuclear reactors that now supply 21 per cent. of its base load electricity. I hope that hon. Members will recall, too, that on such occasions we import power from France. Virtually all that power is generated by French PWRs., located on the Channel coast. Decommissioning our nuclear power stations could deal a serious blow to British jobs and to many of our elderly people, who would be deprived of the guaranteed supplies of heat and light that they need if they are to stay alive.

The fourth reason why shall oppose any attempt to deny our people the advantages of nuclear power arises out of a concern, which I understand the Labour party shares, for the well-being of Third world countries. I shall take one example. If over the next 30 years India, in which I declare an interest as chairman of the Indo-British association, were to expand industrially to the level that Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong have achieved already, the increase in the Indian people's demand for energy will be equal to the whole of OPEC's present oil production.

For the poor and hungry of Afro-Asia, electricity is the key to progress. It alone will enable them to power their irrigation pumps, to provide light for their children to read by, and to warm their elderly people. That is why the Governments of India, China, Pakistan and the rest will not follow the lead of the Labour party in turning their backs on nuclear power. They know that to abandon nuclear power would be to condemn more than half of the world's population to misery and poverty in the century that lies ahead.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, there is the question of safety. That is paramount. I therefore repeat, I believe on behalf of my hon. Friends from Suffolk as well as myself, that none of us would support the building of Sizewell B unless it is subjected to the most scrupulous and foolproof safety requirements. All else is secondary to that consideration.

But are we really to suppose, following the fears that were sparked by Chernobyl or for that matter Three Mile Island, that our British engineers would be so careless or so criminally negligent as to build into Sizewell B the same design faults as the Russians built into Chernobyl? Are we to suppose that the staff of our nuclear industry, whose safety record is second to none, would ignore the lessons that have been learned by American, Japanese, French and German experience?

No one should imagine that the rejection of Sizewell B, let alone the dismantling of all our nuclear power stations, would somehow magically remove our people from any nuclear risk. The French PWRs, from which we now import electricity into our national grid, are closer to south-east England and the people of Suffolk than many of our big power stations in the north. So if, as God forbid, there were to be a French nuclear accident, most of southeast England is just as much at risk from radioactivity from France, as it would be at risk from fallout from Sizewell. That is why the suggestion of nuclear-free zones is absurd. Like it or not, we are part of a wider European environment in which nuclear power has come to stay. The only question is whether we throw away the benefits of such power while still having to put up with the risks.

I end, as I began, in Suffolk. I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State if not now then in the near future, to give the people who will be asked to put up with the undoubted inconvenience of Sizewell, in the event of its being built, two specific assurances.

The first is that during construction, the wholly inadequate B1122 road will be replaced by a new and better route and that this should be in use before any heavy construction commences. My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal gave evidence on that point at the inquiry and his views should be taken with the utmost seriousness. Secondly, I ask for this assurance. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will know that many of the local authorities in Suffolk have had to accept, as have their people, the inconveniences of the Sizewell power stations without any of the contributions to the rates that ought to be paid in these circumstances. Therefore, I say, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal: Justice demands that the locality be properly helped to deal with the pressures imposed by construction. Suffolk county council, the district council and, above all, the town council of Leiston must clearly benefit in rate revenue from any new power station. There is already a real sense of grievance that Sizewell A is the only business in Leiston which can contribute not one penny to the town rates yet it uses the local facilities perhaps more than any other.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister who is to reply will say that those points will be firmly made to the CEGB and to our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment before any decision to give consent arises.