Part of Planning and Infrastructure Bill - Committee (2nd Day) – in the House of Lords at 2:15 pm on 24 July 2025.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Labour
2:15,
24 July 2025
My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that I know the Green Party does not like nuclear, and I would just point to the complete mess that Germany is in because it is turning its back on nuclear. It is then dependent on Russian oil and gas, and, geopolitically, Germany is in a very weak position still because of it.
My point of view is very simple. The noble Baroness mentioned Sizewell C. I am tempting fate seeing the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in his place when I talk about Sizewell C, but it will give power to 6 million homes, and it is low-carbon and homegrown. Although we are reliant on French technology, and there is a whole story about this country’s disastrous mistake to turn its back on new nuclear for so many years, the estimate is that 70% of the supply chain value will come from UK companies. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, public opinion has become much more favourable towards new nuclear.
My noble friend Lord Hanworth mentioned the generic design assessment, which has been a very extensive programme, looking at various designs of new nuclear proposals. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is absolutely right about the delays that have, unfortunately, been built in.
The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, talked about duplication. I just say to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that it is worth reading the 2010 EPR justification decision by the then Secretary of State, which I suspect was made by a Liberal Democrat. I will read a couple of paragraphs. Basically, its conclusion is that it is justified:
“Under this regime, the operator of any EPR would be subject to the same stringent safeguards provisions as existing operators, including inspection and verification by the international safeguards inspectorates of the European Commission and the IAEA. The Secretary of State believes that there is therefore no reason to think that the building of EPRs in the UK would result in any significant rise in proliferation risk from the current low levels … the Secretary of State is conscious of the extent of damage and health detriment that a release of radioactive material from an EPR would have”— quite right too.
“However, he has confidence in the regulatory regimes for safety and security”.
In essence, in this process a developer has to go through hugely expensive, lengthy processes only for the Secretary of State to say, “We are satisfied because we have a very strong regulatory system in the UK”, which we do. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is absolutely right about the Office for Nuclear Regulation.
When we see a wasteful regulatory process, I am afraid it is of no use at all; it is a complete waste of time and effort, and we should be very strong on it. I take my noble friend the Minister’s comment that we should wait for the task force. My plea to him and his department, because I think the justification process is under Defra, is that they take the task force recommendations seriously. I do not know when we are going to be on Report, but I suspect it is going to be late autumn, given the legislative load we have at the moment. There is time to amend on Report and put in place a lot of the recommendations that will come from it. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment 53B withdrawn.
Clause 29: Fees for certain services
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