Disabled Access: Public Premises
Lord Blencathra Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I regret that I have not read the article as yet but I will certainly do so. I have a copy of the Guardian on my desk but, because of today’s Question, I have not yet had an opportunity to read it. In relation to the very important points that the noble Baroness makes—I commend her relentless campaigning role in these areas—there is a duty on the public sector to set an example; it is not expressed in those words, but it is certainly happening on a daily basis. As a country, we do very well compared with other countries. However, I appreciate that it is not sufficient and that we need to do more both on a private basis, by encouraging retailer outlets and business to step up to the plate, and through government. I readily accept that. I will take the point that she makes to BEIS—I am not from BEIS—and ensure that she gets a response.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend accept that I did a quick internet search of the Government Equalities Office yesterday and found three press releases on disabled issues and 10 on transgender and sexual issues? Clearly, transgender people face discrimination, but I point out to my noble friend that 800,000 wheelchair users cannot get into thousands of public buildings—shops, pubs and clubs—including the main post office on Victoria Street. We cannot get into the building, let alone have the luxury of deciding which toilet to use if we could get in there. Will he therefore look at an urgent amendment to the Equality Act 2010? It has been disastrous for disabled people and has put us at the bottom of the heap—I declare a personal bias. Will he look at making a simple amendment so that we can get into buildings over a step which is less than six inches high? It is a simple thing and it should be done.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, once again, I know that my noble friend has campaigned in this area, and particularly on that issue, with great force and eloquence. On the point about ramps and steps in post offices, there has been a recent case in relation to access to counters, which I think the post office has settled out of court. Therefore, there are cases where practice is changing. I accept that, as my noble friend said, there is certainly more to be done. The Government Equalities Office is looking at the operation of the law and will have heard what my noble friend says, but he said it with great force and it is a point well made.
Nuclear Technology
Lord Blencathra Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on initiating this important debate in the week we have signed a deal with China to permit the EDF nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point to go ahead. If we are to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, as far as electricity generation is concerned, it means doing away with all hydrocarbon-based generation: coal, gas and oil. The only carbon-free electricity generation is from renewables, which means wind farms and solar, and from nuclear. Currently, nuclear supplies 20% of UK electricity. Some 16 gigawatts of new nuclear is being planned by the Government, but that is largely to replace our existing nuclear power stations. We therefore need a large influx of new nuclear to provide for our needs. Renewables cannot do it on their own.
I welcome the deal to build the huge 1,600 megawatt behemoth at Hinkley Point. The design is based on the reactor being built at Flamanville in France, which was initially costed at €3.3 billion and due to open by 2012. Earlier this year, EDF said that it would be operating by 2018 and would cost €10.5 billion, but it has now said 2020 and we have no idea what the cost will be. When I first looked at Hinkley Point, it was costed at £10 billion; then it was £12 billion, then £16 billion. The latest reports all state £24.5 billion, but yesterday the deal officially stuck with the figure of £18 billion. This is not a criticism of EDF in any way but an inevitable consequence of trying a new design for a massive reactor and of a nuclear inspectorate in France rejecting many of the build components. Nor will Hinkley be built any faster than Flamanville in my opinion, since our nuclear inspectorate will also, rightly and naturally, be slow, careful and ruthless in checking the build. I am afraid—if I may say so mischievously—that we might be in the era of President Corbyn of the British Islamic Republic long before Hinkley Point is ever opened.
Small modular reactors are the only nuclear resource we can call upon to solve this problem, by providing reliable, relatively cheap power from about 2025 onwards. They can be factory built and installed where we need them, as well as exported into European markets and into Africa, Latin America and Asia. They will be built using the UK nuclear supply chain, unlike wind turbines. They will provide UK jobs, not French, Japanese or Chinese jobs, and long-term contracts for businesses, giving them confidence to invest in people and resources. Andrea Leadsom, the Energy Minister, said last year that these SMRs,
“have the potential to drive down the cost of nuclear energy and make financing easier through shorter construction times and lower initial capital investment requirements”.
I agree entirely, so I say to my noble friend the Minister, “Let’s get on with it”.
I understand that DECC is undertaking a second phase of work to establish the evidence base to inform government policy decisions. This includes commissioning a technical economic assessment that will run until March 2016. The assessment would be used to inform any decision on SMRs, the various designs and the commercial approach to developing them. That sounds all very well and good, but all my experience of government is that every research project concludes that more research is needed as bureaucracies seek to protect their back by never making a decision. There is a generic design slot for one SMR which could start in 2017. We must not waste too much time and we should crack on and get that slot.
It is not as if this is a radical or dangerous concept. As the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, said, Rolls-Royce has been building off-the-shelf small nuclear reactors since 1965 for our nuclear submarines—the PWR1 and now the PWR3, which is roughly 50 megawatts. The latest US aircraft carriers will have two Bechtel A1B nuclear reactors, each capable of producing 300 megawatts. That is phenomenal power for a big boat. In other words, the new US aircraft carrier, the “Gerald R. Ford”, will produce 600 megawatts of power—36% of the output of Hinkley Point—at a cost of $10 billion for the whole boat, not just the engine. Surely to goodness that tells us something about off-the-shelf small modular reactors.
In over 60 years, there has never been an accident with either a US or British nuclear ship or power plant and they are all modular. I am told that we cannot just hoick one of these engine designs and stick them on land, because the ships use 95% enhanced uranium—near nuclear bomb level—and our land-based civilian reactors use about 5%. I do not know whether those figure are right, but my point is that we have more than 60 years of experience of building small modular reactors using one type of fuel. We would simply be asking Rolls-Royce to change from making diesel engines to petrol if we ask them to make a different type of fuel reactor. It should be a piece of cake for our engineers to build those.
Finally, I must make this point to the Minister. As Conservatives, we have gone out on a limb in backing nuclear power. If we want to deliver on this policy and show that we can create new nuclear power stations within a reasonable timescale, we have to crack on with small modular reactors. We can deliver these quickly and cheaply. It will be a huge political embarrassment for the Government I support if we do not get our first new nuclear power station operating before 2030. I commend my noble friend’s Question.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Lord Blencathra Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Blencathra
My Lords, I rise, as far as it is necessary, to make a few observations on this Bill. I support the five-year term. I hope that your Lordships will not consider it impertinent of me to speak on this measure since I was not in the House when it was first debated. I have had an opportunity to read the Select Committee reports and so on, and I can only offer what is perhaps the doubtful benefit of 27 years’ experience in another place as an elected Member of Parliament. I went through six Parliaments in the other place, three Parliaments of four years and three of five years. I must say that, at the time, I did not feel that the five-year Parliaments were somehow depriving the British people of some fundamental human right or a great opportunity which they had missed because we had gone beyond four years.
Arguments have been made today that four is better than five. I do not accept that and see no great body of evidence for it. I accept that there is a considerable weight of opinion for it. Some of the opinion which has been given to your Lordships’ distinguished Select Committees is learned, some is notable and a lot of it is tremendously experienced, but it is still opinion. I would not say that it is firm evidence which this House is therefore bound to follow and pass judgment on.
Perhaps I may deal with a point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. He pointed out that the evidence was that every time a Prime Minister went beyond four years, it was pretty awful. I would not entirely disagree with that, but it was not the fact that the Prime Minister went beyond a magic four-year trigger that made it awful. I was privileged, honoured and proud to serve in John Major’s Government right up until 1997, but the difficulties that the Prime Minister experienced did not materialise in 1996 because he had passed four years; they materialised after the ERM problems. From then on, it became difficult for the Prime Minister; indeed, it became a bit bloody for him. Moreover, he had a low majority. One has to look at the majorities that Prime Ministers have to determine whether their last year will be difficult. That may happen after two years, three years or four years.
Where Prime Ministers went to the polls after four years it was not because they wished to give the people a chance to make their Government accountable; it was not through some great constitutional issue of principle. In fact, they breached our 100-year, five-year norm because they thought there was a dashed good chance they would win, and good luck to them. Margaret Thatcher did that exceptionally well and so did Tony Blair. But let us not pretend that those four-year Parliaments came about as a result of some issue of principle or great conscience, or moral wish to give the British people more accountability. Therefore, I do not accept the argument that going beyond four years is somehow bad for the Government and nothing can be done. Considerable things were achieved towards the end of those five-year terms in office.
There has been discussion on whether the people want four or five years. I was for 27 years the Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border, the largest constituency in England. I do not a recall a Dock and Duck there, but in The George, where I had regular surgeries, I would constantly meet constituents who, within weeks of an election, irrespective of who had won, would say to me that it was time to get rid of the Government, or that they wished they would continue for 20 years. I never met a single constituent who had a view on whether it should be a five-year term or a four-year term. All they wanted was that, in due course, at some point, not more than five years, they would have the chance to express their view and for it to be taken into account.
I hope that your Lordships do not consider it too impertinent of me to comment on a Bill where I was not here for the Second Reading nor able to participate in the early stages, but it was my experience in 27 years in the other place that five-year Parliaments were no less accountable to the people than four-year ones. I accept the point of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that if we move to fixed five-year terms, over a period of many years, the public will have slightly fewer general elections, but I submit once again that having an election every five years instead of every four years does not somehow remove accountability and give the British public less say in the Government whom they want. Therefore, I support the five-year term.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a very full debate with some thoughtful and challenging contributions and strong arguments on both sides. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will not object if, in dealing with his amendment, I take account of Amendment 3, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, spoke. It gives a different perspective and a different choice.
The position taken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is that if you are going to have four-year fixed-term Parliaments we should start with a four-year fixed-term Parliament, whereas the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, takes the view that this Parliament, elected for five years one year ago, should be allowed to complete its five-year term and thereafter move to four years. Clearly there is a distinction. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, gave a good explanation as to why five years for this Parliament is proper—the fact that very difficult decisions have to be taken. There is accountability, too, in being able to make a better judgment at the end of five years than might be possible at the end of four years.
As a Government we believe that it is not just five years for this Parliament but that there should be five years for subsequent Parliaments as well. In saying that, I was getting slightly confused with the arguments that I had to address. I understood, and I apologise if I got it wrong, that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said that the Government could have five years if they wanted and thereafter four. I may have misunderstood what he said.