Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

202: After Clause 87, insert the following new Clause—
“Nuclear power station development(1) Section 104 of the Planning Act 2008 (decisions in cases where national policy statement has effect) is amended as set out in subsections (2) to (4).(2) In subsection (2), insert at the beginning “Subject to subsection (3A),”.(3) In subsection (3), for “(4)” substitute “(3A)”.(4) After subsection (3) insert—“(3A) Subsection (2)(a) to (c) does not apply, and this subsection applies, in the case of an application for an order granting development consent for a nuclear-powered generating station with a proposed nameplate capacity of 500MW or higher, if and to the extent that the Secretary of State considers it is necessary and appropriate to disregard any provision of—(a) the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017,(b) the Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, or(c) any environmental delivery plan made under the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025,to secure the provision of the generating station in an economic, efficient, proportionate and timely manner.”.(5) By the end of the period of six months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must make regulations to amend the Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 to provide for a bespoke regime for the environmental impact assessment of any proposal for an order granting development consent for a nuclear-powered generating station with a proposed nameplate capacity of 500MW or higher. (6) Regulations made pursuant to subsection (5) must make provision for—(a) a page limit for environmental statements, not exceeding 1,000 pages for the main body of the statement and a total of 4,000 pages for any appendices, and(b) any person or body consulted on an environmental impact assessment to respond to the consultation within 21 days.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause makes special provision in relation to large-scale nuclear power station developments by allowing the Secretary of State, when determining an application for a Development Consent Order, to disregard regulations relating to environmental impact assessment, habitats regulations assessment, or any environmental delivery plan, if this is considered necessary for the delivery of the nuclear power station. It also requires the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations to put in place a more proportionate environmental impact assessment regime for proposed nuclear power station development.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 202 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Offord of Garvel. It addresses the pressing need to streamline and speed up the delivery of new nuclear power stations, currently burdened by heavy-handed regulations. It aims to correct this and ensure that our planning system facilitates rather than fetters the delivery of affordable, accessible and secure energy for the British people.

Energy is the fundamental deciding factor in the success of an economy and that has never been truer than it is today. Energy is indeed now the currency of AI. Progress is decided by whether innovation can be supported by a cheap and accessible supply of energy, and in the present day, with round-the-clock data centres, AI start-ups and an economy that runs non-stop, that is all the more important. If we want to be a growing and prosperous economy, we cannot resign ourselves to be a nation that accepts intermittent and expensive energy.

Unfortunately, we—I include successive Governments in that—have so far done just that. Our international counterparts have been busy reducing their costs and securing their domestic energy supply. At the same time, we have been busily engaged in a somewhat blinkered and self-defeating ideological pursuit. The result is that our costs are now some of the highest in the world, and our shackled planning system does not let us correct this.

This is not an attempt to play politics; the empirical evidence proves the point. Wind and solar energy now account for nearly 40% of our national grid generation. We have commandeered fields and tarnished the countryside to reach this outcome. The result is that even if wholesale prices halve in the next five years, electricity prices will be 20% higher. The policy costs of this Government’s initiatives add around £300 to the average annual bill and cost companies twice as much to deliver it as it does in France. This is not the result of an efficient energy system.

The obvious solution to this is to build more nuclear power plants. They may have large upfront costs, but that is offset by relatively small variable costs. There are potential economies of scale, and they are infinitely more productive than the sources of energy we currently rely on. Once built, they are entirely domestic and provide a secure and sovereign energy source. Replace wind with nuclear power and we have a source of energy that uses up 3,000 times less land—that is an environmental change that will have a noticeable effect on the people of this country.

The problem lies in the fact that we have not taken the necessary steps to realise nuclear’s benefits. The last nuclear power station to come online did so 30 years ago, and of the five in use, four are scheduled to close by the end of the decade, as it currently stands. Hinkley Point C, currently under construction, is set to become the most expensive power station in human history, at an exorbitant £44 billion in 2024 terms. It uses the same EPRs as counterparts in France and Finland, yet they pay 27% less per kilowatt hour than we do.

I spent yesterday in Finland at Olkiluoto 3, the first nuclear power station to have been opened in 15 years. It began electricity production in 2023. It is estimated to last for another 100 years and is the third-most powerful nuclear power generator in the world. It produces almost a third of all electricity in Finland, regardless of the weather or the time of day. It is the same design as Hinkley Point and that proposed for Sizewell C, so we should learn from the engineering challenges faced by the Finns.

The environmental lobby has undertaken a two-pronged attack on energy security, the first of which is the endless sprawl of wind and solar farms, the second being the endless stream of consultations, challenges and appeals that are now a given with every new planning application. This amendment would go a long way to answering that problem, putting progress over paperwork and allowing vital national infrastructure to be built.

If we seriously want lower bills, a dynamic and growing economy and a Britain that attracts investment, we must be brave in bypassing the self-sabotaging legislation which holds us back. This amendment would not dangerously free the market. It is a balanced approach that gives the Secretary of State the choice—it is a choice—on whether the benefits of nuclear power must outweigh discretionary environmental concerns. It would allow us to achieve energy security, embrace the new technologies that come with industrial development and enable the growth that this Government have for such a long time promised. I beg to move.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 207, 220 and 230, which are all linked. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, for supporting them. I am also grateful for all the constructive engagement I have had with the Minister and her teams between Committee and Report. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, cannot be here this evening and wish her a speedy recovery.

I reflected on the Committee debate which highlighted the contentious nature of these amendments. Of course, noble Lords are concerned about rolling back protections for nature for infrastructure build, and the delays we have seen to large infrastructure in the UK are a multifaceted problem, but we cannot get away or escape from the fact that poor interpretation of environmental regulations is causing excessive cost and multiyear delays to many of our large infrastructure projects. The evidence here is clear—I will not go through the examples again that I cited in Committee.

The root cause of the delays to many of our offshore wind and nuclear programmes, and the other examples that I cited, and their excessive costs, comes down to an overzealous interpretation of the habitats regulations. Ironically, those regulations are causing long delays to much of our net-zero infrastructure and much else besides. They are impacting our national security, because energy security is national security.

My amendments offer a way through that, while maintaining protections for nature, by attempting to take the regulations back to their original intent by reversing case law and clarifying interpretation of existing law. These changes would move the dial significantly by ensuring that regulators are guided towards a more sensible and proportionate interpretation of the regulations and compensation, streamlining the programme for getting infrastructure through the system.

Finally, these points relate to a substantive proposal that the Minister has offered related to these amendments, so I look forward to hearing her proposal in detail when she sums up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the point the noble Lord is making. I will take the subject back and discuss it with the teams in Defra and my own department, and then write to him, if that would be helpful. I am loath to make a time commitment from the Dispatch Box without doing that first.

Turning to Amendment 202, as previously noted I share the ambition of the noble Lord, Lord Offord, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, to support new nuclear development, which will be critical for economic growth and achieving our clean energy mission. However, providing the Secretary of State the ability to completely exempt nuclear power stations producing more than 500 megawatts from requirements in respect to the habitats regulations, environmental impact assessments and any future environmental delivery plans would create uncertainty for developers and erode public support for such projects. These are important tools for making sure that the environmental impacts of projects are considered. The environmental protections they contain relate not only to nature but to the broader community impacts. This blunt approach to disregarding these obligations would put decision-makers at a disadvantage and prevent developers taking important steps to address the environmental impact of the development.

I agree with the noble Lord and the noble Baroness; we need to do more to reform the planning system to accelerate nuclear development in this country. We are in the final stages of designating a new national policy statement for nuclear energy generation, EN-7. That will provide a robust and flexible framework for new nuclear developers seeking development consent and, alongside the Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy (EN-1), will provide the Secretary of State with some discretion when considering habitats regulations and the environmental impact assessment during decision-making by defining low-carbon energy infrastructure, including nuclear, as a critical national priority. We are also awaiting the final recommendations of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce.

I hope, following my explanation, that the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, will feel able to withdraw Amendment 202.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response. Although I do not entirely agree with her arguments, I have made my case as well as I can and I do not propose to detain the House any longer, given the lateness of the hour. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 202 withdrawn.