Defence Investment Plan
Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Lord Coaker(4 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
In terms of the spending, I have made the point about the 2027 spending review, and that the document lays out that we will come back to the 3% commitment at the 2027 spending review, and, of course, the 3.5% commitment is laid out in the document as well. That lays out what the Government’s plans are.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has just alluded to the elephant in the room, which is that there are no cuts to the £333 billion welfare bill, which would go a long way to helping with additional support for the defence industry. My worry is that most of these cuts are unknown, and they are optimistic efficiencies, but I know that the £2 billion being cut from the BEIS budget is a worry. How is this going to affect Mr Miliband’s ambitions for net zero?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I do not know about the ambitions for net zero. All I can say to the noble Baroness is that, of course, spending is important, and increasing the amount of spending on defence is important. Whatever decisions are made will require the reprioritisation of budgets for what the Government plan to do. That is the reality of finding more money for defence. We are ensuring that everything in the current plans, and the defence investment plan, is funded. The spending review will come back to how it is funded beyond 2029-30, and how that is done will be a matter for that review.
Nuclear Regulatory System
Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Lord Coaker(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and in answering my noble friend, of course it requires the big nuclear power stations such as Sizewell C and Hinkley C, as my noble friend has said. They are clearly part of the answer to providing our energy needs through nuclear and these big power stations. Alongside that, of course, we need the small modular reactors. They can be put in place more quickly and can be a part of the contribution to ensuring that we can meet our energy needs. Rolls-Royce, Holtec, GE Hitachi and a number of others are all trying to take this forward and, as my noble friend says, they are part of the answer, as well as these big stations.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this interim report. It highlights the need for international collaboration to standardise and harmonise industry and regulatory approaches, the costs and time delays of which can be terminal to many innovative nuclear technologies and projects. We speak a lot about SMRs, but we must not forget the perhaps more interesting AMR technologies coming soon. It is imperative that the UK leads this effort, given the vast power demands of tech companies which really want to work with the UK. Who from the Government will lead the charge alongside our excellent chief inspector so that vendors have the trust and confidence they need to create investable projects?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
Of course, the charge will be led by the Government. The Government believe in nuclear and in international collaboration. The Secretary of State, along with others, will provide a whole-of-government response. We welcome the support of industry, the Opposition and across the House and this Parliament for achieving that. Of course, it will be what we do nationally, but there will be international collaboration as well. I thank the noble Baroness for raising this because together we can sort out this energy problem, deliver much more quickly, and ensure that our planning process supports delivery to meet the needs that we have for energy, whereas sometimes it gets in the way.