Royal Navy: Nuclear Submarines
Debate between Lord Coaker and Lord Wigley(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
From his previous incarnation as the MP for Barrow and Furness, the noble Lord knows a significant amount about the nuclear programme. He is right to highlight the important work around not only the major companies and big primes but the smaller companies and the supply chain right across the UK. As my noble friend Lord Spellar often says—quite rightly—we need to make sure that as much of that industrial capability as possible is developed within our own country. I am happy to meet the All-Party Group on AUKUS to discuss how we take this forward.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I realise that I represent a minority view in this Chamber, but can the Minister say whether it is still the Government’s policy that they reserve the position of using nuclear weapons as a first response to a conventional strike? Many of us would regard that approach as totally morally unacceptable.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
Of course, the Government’s position is to maintain the position that we have had over many decades. I appreciate the point that the noble Lord raises. He will know—because the debate often rages about this—that the fact he can say that and can speak without fear or favour in this Chamber in a democracy is part of why we keep the nuclear deterrent: to defend our democracy from those who seek to undermine it.
Nuclear Regulatory System
Debate between Lord Coaker and Lord Wigley(4 months ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
I should have read the Answer I read out more carefully; I thought that when I read out “in due course”. The serious point, I say to my noble friend, is that the report outlines the fact that recommendations are needed. Those recommendations will be made in autumn 2025. The Government are already discussing, across government, how they should respond to that. There will be a task force, there will be cross-government working to ensure, as my noble friend says, that the report is not just something we all read and agree with, but something we read and act on. It is our desire to come forward with concrete steps. We will bring those forward, and my noble friend will be able to see them for himself, but speed is of the essence.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the main finding of the interim report is the need for a firm steer from the Government to establish a strategy for nuclear safety, because the current policy does not address a strategic direction on safety management. As the report recommends an immediate start on this, and the publication of a consultation paper alongside the task force’s final report, will the Minister commit today to such a timetable?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
As I said to my noble friend, we will do everything as speedily as possible. We will move forward on this. I say to the noble Lord: safety is of paramount importance, of course it is, and there cannot be any compromise on that, but we have to get on with this. In the mid-1990s, 25% of our electricity was generated through nuclear; it is now 15%. Even with the new power stations that have been agreed, unless we do more it will go down. That is not good enough; we have to do better than that—with the small modular reactors that my noble friend talked about and with the new power station that was recently agreed by my right honourable friend Ed Miliband MP. There cannot be any compromise on safety, but neither can there be the situation where, time after time, decisions are delayed and nothing happens. The consequence of that is that our economy suffers and jobs are lost. That is not good enough and we are going to do something about it.
Decommissioned Nuclear-Powered Submarines
Debate between Lord Coaker and Lord Wigley(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
I pay tribute to the work that the noble Baroness did to try to speed up some of these processes. She asked two very pertinent questions. For “Swiftsure”, we retained the 90% recycling target. She will know that once a decommissioned submarine such as “Swiftsure” is defueled, there is an initial phase that takes the nuclear material out. Then there is an intermediate phase, which is followed by dry-docking—which is where “Swiftsure” is—for the rest of the submarine to be recycled. We expect 90% of that to be recycled. The whole point of “Swiftsure” is that it acts as a demonstrator project so that we can learn from how that was done—what worked and what perhaps could have been improved—and then apply that to all the other submarines that have been decommissioned.
Lord Wigley (PC)
Does the Minister recall the late, great Sir John Houghton, who identified the dangers of global warming several decades ago? As an eminent scientist, he identified the potential to generate electricity by reworking some of the nuclear waste that comes from not only submarines but other parts of the Armed Forces. Are the Government investigating that aspect?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
No, we are not investigating that for nuclear submarines. The MoD takes climate change very seriously, and I have recently signed off a submission about fuel and its better economic use with respect to climate change. Right across the MoD, climate change is taken seriously, but on the noble Lord’s specific question about decommissioning nuclear submarines, there is no intention to use them, for example, to go into the grid.