Nuclear Power

Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and Andrew Smith

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mrs Brooke.

In the debate on the future nuclear programme, our inability to learn from past mistakes is sometimes staggering. I well remember the 2008 Public Accounts Committee report that drew attention to the vastly underestimated cost of nuclear power and highlighted the nuclear industry’s tendency to lumber the taxpayer with an ever-increasing and seemingly endless bill. The fallacy of committing billions more pounds of public expenditure to nuclear energy has never been more apparent than it is now. Whether it is the disastrous consequences of the Japanese earthquake, Germany’s decision to end investment in nuclear or, closer to home, the billions of pounds of subsidies being squandered at the uneconomical mixed oxide—MOX—plant at Sellafield and the decision of RWE, SSE and E.ON to pull out of the market, it is clear that nuclear is not the energy source on which the Government should be concentrating.

Hon. Members may be wondering why an MP from a constituency in Northern Ireland has a particular interest in this subject. I represent the constituency of South Down, which is straight across the Irish sea from Sellafield, and we have had many concerns over the years. I am very pleased that the Minister is here to respond to the debate. Although its main focus will be the economic costs, I must mention the impact of nuclear on public safety, which cannot be separated from the economic argument.

The real point in looking at a disaster such as Fukushima in Japan is not necessarily to try to draw a direct parallel to what might happen here, but rather to use it to illustrate the fact that nuclear power can never be made entirely safe. There will always be unforeseen contingencies that have potentially disastrous consequences. People in my constituency and across Ireland have been living in the shadow of such a possibility because of the Sellafield plant, which has been considered the most radioactive site on the planet for more than 40 years.

Over the plant’s lifespan, there have been hundreds of recorded safety breaches and high levels of indiscriminate discharges of radioactive waste into the Irish sea. The MOX plant at Sellafield, which was built to process spent fuel from the old thermal oxide reprocessing plant or THORP—itself the subject of an international nuclear event scale level 3 leak—has also required high levels of hazardous transportation of plutonium dioxide through the Irish sea to Cumbria. All this for a plant that was disastrously inefficient and had to be closed following its financial failure. It is not therefore surprising that public opinion in my constituency has been consistently anti-nuclear, and it must be recognised that a major incident will not heed, or relate to, any borders on our island. There is also concern about the possibility of underground storage for the world’s radioactive waste.

It was against the backdrop of such catastrophic risk, as demonstrated by the disaster at Fukushima, and with a more realistic appraisal of the spiralling cost of nuclear power provision, that Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German Parliament decided to pull out of the nuclear market and to invest in a truly secure, low-carbon renewable energy future. Given where I come from, I want this Parliament to move in a similar direction.

Nuclear power development has always required high levels of public subsidy. The Minister should know better than anyone the deferred cost of an ill-thought-out nuclear programme, as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority spends £1.7 billion a year on managing nuclear waste and other liabilities from Britain’s current nuclear power programme. That amounts to more than half the budget of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which is a staggering legacy for the taxpayer and one to which the previous Secretary of State frequently alluded.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority was also responsible for closing the MOX plant at Sellafield. That plant cost the taxpayer £1.6 billion, and was another disastrous legacy of the nuclear programme. Its existence also meant that a constant stream of hazardous material was being shipped daily through the Irish sea and along the Irish coast. That was all for a plant designed to process 120 tonnes of MOX a year, but which instead produced the grand total of six tonnes over its entire lifespan.

On the draft Energy Bill 2012 and the future nuclear programme, sadly, there are warning signs that this Government are prepared to repeat the same mistakes. I fear that people will be having a similar debate in 20 years’ time. It could not be clearer, given current record oil and petrol prices, that reliance on imported fossil fuels is not serving customers, business or the wider economy. Although I commend the stated aim in the Government’s draft Energy Bill to decarbonise the electricity sector, the path set out in the legislation seems to prioritise subsidising nuclear fuel, and people will continue to be vulnerable to high prices.

In Northern Ireland, more people every year are falling into fuel poverty, and the draft Bill was an opportunity to make the bold changes necessary to reform the energy market with a view to the long-term needs of the economy. Consumers and businesses are suffering and they need a coherent strategy that delivers clean, green jobs and sustainable fuel prices. Sadly, the draft Bill appears to do little more than nod to the renewable industry, while winking at the nuclear industry. The Government seem intent on delivering more of the same, especially in their continued obsession with the expensive and ultimately unsafe energy source that is nuclear power.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate, and I agree with all the points in her extremely cogent argument. Is not one of the many risks that consumers, and the economy generally, will get locked into artificially high prices for electricity as the only means of making it viable for energy companies to undertake the huge investment necessary to build nuclear plants?

[Ms Ritchie]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree with that thesis. I want to make a little progress.