Nuclear technology park to develop innovative reactors, skilled jobs and technology export opportunities – Viscount Hanworth.
Viscount Hanworth: Britain is experiencing an energy crisis. Despite its commitment to staunch the emissions of carbon dioxide, it remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels to power its industries and, more significantly, to power its transport and its electricity generation. The electricity generation is increasingly dependent on renewable sources of wind and solar energy. These sources are intermittent and...
Viscount Hanworth: Is the Minister not aware that freeholders are frequently motivated to consolidate the ownership of their properties by driving the leaseholders into unsustainable debt, by dint of exorbitant service charges?
Viscount Hanworth: Britain has a lower rate of economic growth than—and its per capita income compares poorly with—many of its European neighbours and others further afield. Questions must be asked about the causes of these deficiencies and what can be done to overcome them. People of different political persuasions give quite different answers. Prime Minister Liz Truss and her close colleagues had answers...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I intend to talk about the internal consequences for universities of their financial crises. The number of universities running financial deficits has increased in recent years. The proportion of providers with a yearly deficit has increased from 5% in 2015-16 to 32% in 2019-20; the figures for the subsequent academic years will undoubtedly be far worse. The deficits can be...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that freeholders have been empowered to impose the costs of any litigation that has been initiated by an aggrieved leaseholder upon that leaseholder. When will that extraordinary anomaly in British law be corrected?
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I will interpolate a few comments in support of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. This amendment is not, as some are still supposing, a plea to prolong the tenure of some of the existing members of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Rather, it is an attempt to draw attention to the dysfunctional aspects of the existing arrangements affecting Standing...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The traditional way of ensuring that the executive powers are responsible for their actions and that they are accountable for their effects has been the scrutiny of government legislation during the process of its enactment. However, this way of handling the issues arising out of detailed regulations...
Viscount Hanworth: The Minister will be aware that the property companies that own freeholds are able to impose on leaseholders any legal costs that might arise from a leaseholder’s appeal to a tribunal in the face of the freeholder’s exorbitant service charges. When will this extraordinary legal anomaly be redressed?
Viscount Hanworth: Have the Government thought further about small modular nuclear reactors, which could come online much sooner than the EPR nuclear reactor proposed for Sizewell? Moreover, SMRs could have significant export potential if they were to materialise in good time.
Viscount Hanworth: Margaret Thatcher had a vision of a property-owning democracy, in which citizens should own the dwellings they occupy. In 1980, the Conservatives’ Housing Act gave council tenants the right to buy their homes at discounted prices. Surely, the belief was that property owners are more likely to vote Conservative than are the dispossessed or people who are reliant on public authorities to...
Viscount Hanworth: Some of the companies issue contracts in which the small print declares that their leaseholders will be liable for any costs that the companies might incur if they are called before a tribunal. Does this have any legal sanction and, if it does, can steps be taken to prevent this happening?
Viscount Hanworth: It is a clear issue and I will give the Minister instances of its occurrence.
Viscount Hanworth: I wish to express my support for Amendments 39 and 49. I have been looking for a place to make my interjection, which ought to have been encapsulated in an amendment, but perhaps I should propose an amendment at Report. However, now is as good a time as any to air my suggestions. Aviation contributes significantly to emissions of carbon dioxide. These emissions do not approach the level...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, management companies are buying up leaseholds in order to impose exorbitant charges. At what stage does this become a criminal activity?
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, this legislation, which is being rushed through Parliament, has the ostensible purpose of addressing the crisis of fuel poverty that is affecting an increasing number of households. The crisis is a consequence of the escalation of fuel prices in the international energy markets. Temporary measures are to be taken to tax windfall profits that are accruing to the domestic energy...
Viscount Hanworth: To ask Her Majesty’s Government when, and under what circumstances, they will place orders for small modular nuclear reactors.
Viscount Hanworth: I am not reassured by the Answer the Minister has given. To await the completion of a generic design assessment of a proven technology is to impose an unnecessary delay. There is an international market awaiting small modular reactors. Unless the Government provide full and immediate support for the SMR of Rolls-Royce, foreign producers will capture the market and we may have to depend on...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the opening speaker in this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Mair, has filled the foreground with much important detail. I shall confine myself to the background. Catapults were first established in 2011 with the purpose of fostering industrial research and development and bridging the gap between universities and industry. They were intended to address the fact that Britain had been...
