Lord Offord of Garvel
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce Review.
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Lord Vallance of Balham)
We welcome and endorse the report and accept the principle of the recommendations it has set out. We will present a full implementation plan within three months. The task force will be engaged in the implementation phase to review progress and support delivery. We will complete implementation within two years, subject to legislative timelines on elements requiring primary legislation. We have already met the first recommendation with the publication of the Prime Minister’s strategic steer.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I am pleased to hear the Minister acknowledge that the Fingleton report makes it clear that government indecision and flawed legislation are largely to blame for nuclear regulatory failure. As part of this programme going forward, I think all sides of the House would agree we need to move forward expeditiously on nuclear. Can the Minister give some specific recommendations around how the Government will approach the new SMR site in Wylfa?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an important point about Wylfa. There are two aspects of this in relation to regulations. Small modular reactors are a way to ensure that we have a streamlined approach, because they will all be built in the same way and the regulation will apply to each one consistently. That in itself will speed up the process. But the first reactor will, of course, be the first and it will inevitably be a bit more complicated than the ones that follow. In terms of the application to Wales, the regulators that have UK-wide responsibilities will fall under the Fingleton review, and we will adopt the same processes. For those that have devolved accountabilities in Wales, we will discuss with Welsh Ministers and the Government.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the report in overall terms, but is my noble friend the Minister aware of the considerable concern in the scientific community about the accuracy of some of the data on fish impacts used in case studies about disproportionate decisions, which the report uses to criticise current nuclear regulation perhaps in a slightly inappropriate area? Is the Minister confident that the rest of the report is therefore reliable? Would the Minister meet with me and those scientists whose research demonstrates that some of the case studies in that area are not perhaps reliable?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for the question. I wondered how long it would take for fish to come up, and it has come up very quickly. It is important to note the burden of regulation on the nuclear industry in this country is far greater than in any other country. It is more expensive to build things here and it takes longer. For example, the environmental impact assessment for Hinkley Point was 31,401 pages; for Sizewell C, it was 44,260 pages. I understand the point my noble friend is making about the fish. The task force is one that recognises clearly that environmental processes are important. It does not aim to dilute them, but to ensure that decisions are faster, more predictable and proportionate. I would of course be happy to meet my noble friend to discuss any concerns she has about the specifics.
Baroness Suttie (LD)
My Lords, the task force estimates tens of billions of pounds of potential savings, especially in the area of decommissioning. If savings are made, will the Minister commit to reinvest those funds into a safe disposal facility for our most highly radioactive waste?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
As the noble Baroness will know, we have a very large nuclear waste store in this country. There are ongoing discussions about geological disposal facilities, which is a very key area. I will keep the House updated as we progress that.
Lord Lilley (Con)
Will the noble Lord bring some sense of urgency and drive to the development of small nuclear reactors? It has been over 12 years since the Select Committee in the other place on which I served recommended that the Government bring in a programme. The Minister is now talking about three months to look at a report and two years to implement it. It was barely 10 years after the explosion of the atomic bomb that this country built its first nuclear reactor for peaceful uses, and within 20 years we had more than the rest of the world put together. Please bring back some drive—this is not a party-political point—as it has been lacking in recent years. I look to the Minister to bring it to bear.
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I am absolutely delighted that the Opposition Benches have a feeling of urgency about this, because we certainly have not had it for the past 13 years. We have urgency; we have announced that we will have small modular reactors, and they are going ahead. Work will start on them next year and they are not dependent on the read-out from this review, which is also urgently needed for the reasons stated: we have a far more complicated system of regulation than we need.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, I fear that the revisions to the nuclear regulatory framework have come too late. We have lost to other countries the projects to develop fourth generation nuclear reactors that were intending to conduct their criticality tests in the UK. Can the Minister envisage any way of bringing these projects back to the UK?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I think both the previous question and this question refer to something which is a big problem: we have neglected nuclear in this country for far too long and it is important that we get moving on it, both with small modular reactors and with advanced modular reactors. That is why there are plans for both of those now. EN-7, which was laid before the House as a strategic framework for this, lays out the need to be much more forward leaning on both of those and get them into this country as soon as we can.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, in September the US and UK signed a nuclear partnership worth £76 billion. Can the Minister tell the House what the impact on this partnership will be of a decision by the UK Government to turn down Westinghouse’s nuclear power plans for Wylfa? Did the Minister have a chance to see the remarks by the new outstanding US ambassador, His Excellency Warren Stephens the other day?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
A decision was made to get on with small modular reactors, and Wylfa is the site for that. That will start next year. At the same time, we have started a programme to look at other sites for gigawatt scale nuclear, which would include the Westinghouse programme. We will be working with Westinghouse and others as we look at potential sites around the country. That work started with urgency. We recognise that, in order to get the nuclear power that we need, we will probably need a mix of small modular reactors, advanced modular reactors and indeed more gigawatt reactors.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, in answer to my noble friend’s question, the Minister described a storage facility for high-level nuclear waste. He knows that this is not a sustainable solution to the long-term issue of disposal of nuclear materials. There has been a long-standing stymie on the future of storage of waste. Will the Minister confirm at least that the process of looking at this will be restarted? As he rightly points out, there has been sclerosis in decision-making, and we need to know where the nuclear journey ends as well as when it starts.
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I could not agree more about the urgency. We have a very big task, both with disposal of existing stores and with getting new nuclear moving. I had a meeting just yesterday discussing the geological disposal facility, what the options are and what is required in order to progress that. There is a very big challenge in making sure that we get this right. It is not going to happen quickly. The storage problem is one that is going to take a very long time to get right.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for updating the House on what the Labour Government have done since they were elected. Does he know what was happening for the last 13 years under the previous Administration? They are good at criticising what we are doing but ignore the 13 years they were in power.
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
As I have said, as a country we have been neglectful of nuclear for far too long. We had a leading position in the world, which we lost through inaction, and that has been the case for a very long time. I think now is the moment to make sure that we redress that. The small modular reactors and the Rolls Royce involvement present a domestic position to be able to have facilities not only in the UK but also for export. There has been a long period of neglect, and I think it is very important that we—and we will—treat this with great urgency now, because it is going to be a very important part of the energy mix going forward.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, it is sad that the Minister is trying to bring party politics into this. I live near nuclear power stations. From 1997 to 2010, Labour did not do a single thing about nuclear. From 2010, our coalition partners were not enthusiastic, but we got it going and we did things about the financing. It is really important that we try to think strategically. However, my question to the Minister is because I am concerned by one of the recommendations that, all of a sudden, it will be the Chancellor who will in effect try to encourage the regulators to consider what might be proportional. I am really worried about this, because the ONR was under the steerage of the Department for Work and Pensions, and not energy, deliberately to make sure that safety not only for workers but for local residents was paramount. Can the Minister give me an assurance that that safety focus will continue for local residents?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
On the noble Baroness’s first point, I have been clear that there has been a long-standing neglect of nuclear. That has been across multiple Governments, and we should recognise that. The strategic steer to regulators was issued by the Prime Minister yesterday, so that is clear. It is important that regulators understand the desire of government to see this moving.