Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on this important debate about critical decisions being taken by societies and Governments on the key issues of human-induced climate change and the important decisions that need to be made about the future. Yesterday’s report in the UK was certainly a significant contribution.

I declare my interest as a former head of the Met Office, which is a world-leading organisation for climate change research. I am also involved in UK universities, which play a world-leading role in climate science.

Decisions are greatly benefiting from the excellent explanations of the science from the BBC and other media and the many practical measures being taken. Even schoolchildren have been following this. Other noble Lords have referred to their grandchildren; I refer to my scientific granddaughter, who has also greatly enjoyed these programmes. These programmes and public demonstrations, and notices on French motorways, are explaining the need to reduce the artificial emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. We have to avoid the steady rise in concentrations of these gases to avoid a gradual rise of temperature in the atmosphere and on the ocean surface.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, emphasised, public debate and decisions are now focusing on the damage to societies and infrastructure caused by floods, fires, high winds and rising sea levels. The classic case of this is small countries in the Pacific which are likely to have to evacuate their islands as a result of sea-level rise. Environmental dangers to agriculture and industry will also have high costs, as other noble Lords have emphasised. Evidence of human-induced climate change is particularly visible in the polar regions, not only in the melting of sea ice and glaciers but also in the significant effects on weather patterns at lower latitudes, as we have seen with the varied jet stream and polar vortices now regularly referred to in the media. It is quite something when you have to use new expressions to explain the changes taking place.

Noble Lords might be surprised to hear that these models are also extremely important in reassuring about the future. As we learned at a Royal Society meeting in 2015, these models show how, if the rise of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases was to cease—as many noble Lords have talked about—the models show that this would actually lead to the climate patterns returning. In other words, for much of this century we are still in a situation where, if the policies are correct, we will see a return to the nature that we want.

We also need to continue science in order to debate with climate sceptics. There is still a problem with some leading newspapers, as I saw to my surprise on the central page of the Times yesterday. As has been commented on, critical policies for reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere depend on reducing emissions resulting from human activities such as industry and transport and on finding the direct, innovative responses that we need in industry, transport, deforestation and controlling the vast emissions from natural sources of hydrocarbons, such as high melting permafrost and fracking in the northern United States. Soil and water policies are also critical, yet the World Meteorological Organization, at which I used to represent the UK and in which we are very involved, has, regrettably, begun to consider the possibility of downgrading the historical importance of international water programmes. This is an important matter which I hope the Foreign Office will take on board.

Technological developments must minimise the dangers to society and enable new low-carbon designs for societies, especially in endangered and highly populated urban areas where temperatures are threatening human health. For example, solar collectors are a new technology which can be used to minimise high temperatures in tropical urban areas, as large cities in China do now. Urban dangers are also important in coastal areas subject to extreme flooding. We must also consider the exposed, mountainous areas in Nepal. There are other examples where energy technology policies need to be combined with different types of electricity generation. This is why, in the UK, wind and solar have to be combined with other energy systems, particularly nuclear, that can operate in weather conditions when the renewables cannot.

In Asia, the generally low winds and cloudy conditions are driving the need for nuclear energy in, for example, Laos, Vietnam and Singapore. These countries are currently planning for future energy based on nuclear fission, but at the same time there is growing public and private investment in Europe and the United States in nuclear fusion, which may be providing clean energy in the next 10 to 20 years. I declare an interest as a consultant to Tokamak Energy Ltd. Thanks to recent technological breakthroughs in superconducting magnetic fields, in which the UK is a pioneer, and plasma physics, we may see this. The great advantage of fusion is that it will not produce radioactive waste, mentioned by other noble Lords. Indeed, the technology will eventually safely reprocess waste, which is one reason why I am so interested in this advanced technology. I am confident that it will benefit society, as previous developments of science and technology have done.

Considering and explaining the benefits to society is an important role for world leaders. Mrs Thatcher, from long ago, has been spoken about. Let us hope that, when Mr Trump comes here in May, we give him an earful of what the House has been hearing this afternoon.

Climate Change

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important debate, which was well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. It is, first, an opportunity to review progress in understanding scientific progress and technological developments, especially those associated with extreme and unusual processes and phenomena. Secondly, we should review and identify new and appropriate technologies and strategies for urban areas and communities around the world. I declare my interest as an emeritus science professor at UCL and co-chair of the Asian Network on Climate Science and Technology.

Parliamentarians have supported how essential it is to have a broad and integrated approach to dealing with these issues and to support the Government in that respect. It is only when we work on international programmes that we can make contributions, as the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, commented. Nearly 10 years ago, I was proud to join other UK parliamentarians in helping the growth of the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment, which helped ensure that a large number of the countries in the world—150 or so—came together to develop policies that eventually led to the Paris Agreement in 2015.

I will use this opportunity to point out where the UK and other government agencies, as well as research and industry, could progress more rapidly using effective climate policies. I hope to explain the worrying rise in overall temperatures and how in many areas there are extremes in precipitation and other meteorological effects. To give your Lordships an example, when I was chief executive of the Met Office, I learned from our forecasters how west-to-east coherent jet streams in the northern hemisphere tended to become chaotic—I was going to say “fizzle out”—as they came over western Europe, therefore weather forecasters did not talk about the jet stream over Europe. But research that has taken place in the past five to six years in Europe and the United States now shows weather forecasters how the jet stream persists over northern Europe. This partly explains why, associated with the warming of the Arctic and the decrease in polar ice, the jet stream is now much stronger over Europe, which leads to considerable changes in the weather, as we have seen in the past few years. A number of severe winds and temperature changes have been observed.

In tropical areas, extreme precipitation has occurred more frequently over mountainous urban areas such as those in south-west China, including Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Rapid reconstruction methods in communities damaged by floods have been invented by engineers in some developing countries, such as Malaysia, and a number of other developing countries make use of them—whereas there is a tendency, when you have damaging floods, simply to cast away all the woodwork and buildings.

Extreme winds and rainfall associated with tropical cyclones are becoming more dangerous. Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines had unique features: the wind was so strong that it pushed back the sea and lifted stones from the bottom that then crashed into buildings and vegetation even a few kilometres inland. In fact, the wind was so intense that the bark was stripped from the trees, which many people studying it said had never been seen before.

In my first debate in the House of Lords in 2000, noble Lords discussed their concern about the rise in coastal sea levels. Since then, there have been serious floods along the rivers associated with significant and persistent precipitation and high winds. Coastal communities in the UK and around Europe, agriculture and Governments are now having to contribute financially to raising the dykes and pumping schemes. That is a serious matter.

Other equally important and long-term risks in coastal areas have been associated with non-carbon nuclear power stations and nuclear waste-processing facilities. These are also being installed in Asia. Other risks in those areas are associated with volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis along coastlines, such as the Fukushima nuclear power plant breach, which UK insurance companies have been involved with. Artificially generated carbon emissions and earthquakes caused by fracking are also a factor.

People will continue to live in these dangerous areas. They will have to make use of these new methods to reduce risk. One of the most important developments in which I am involved is that of fusion energy in small, modular systems, which are now being supported by the Government and the private sector. We now expect those systems to be producing electrical energy, perhaps in the next five to 10 years—a considerably shorter time than the very large international ITER fusion project in France, which is not, I notice, being supported by the UK’s EU parliamentarians.

As recent articles in Nature and the newspapers have commented, urban areas are producing some new technologies. One of the most remarkable ones is Wuhan, where very high-level solar panels cover large areas of the city, so that the city becomes rather like a forest canopy, with a great reduction in radiation—heat—hitting the ground; it is reflected.

Finally, Members of the House of Lords who enjoy drinking wine might like to know that one problem of climate change is too much heat, which makes the wine too alcoholic. What are they now doing in France? They are putting solar collectors along the lines of the vineyards. That is very interesting.

Trades Union Congress 150th Anniversary

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate, led by my noble friend Lady Prosser, on the importance of, and differing contributions to many aspects of life by, the trade union movement. Although the number of members involved in trade unions has declined since the 1960s, their role is nevertheless very important.

I personally learned about the importance of trade unions when I was a student at Cambridge University in the 1960s. Then, all engineering students were encouraged to join a student society called “Human Relations in Industry”—a very idealistic title. Its president was Professor Kirkaldy, who was the Montague Burton professor of industrial relations. We used to organise joint meetings of leading trade unionists and management. For example, one of the famous evenings was when we discussed industrial relations in the shipbuilding industry. That was particularly notorious. Interestingly, by the end of the 1960s, notwithstanding perturbations in Paris and elsewhere, the bulk of the ambitious students were moving into becoming management. Au contraire, there were some informal groups of very left-wing students.

A few years later I began to see this from a practical point of view when I was a junior research engineer in the large Central Electricity Research Laboratories of the CEGB. I was able to see how a large, successful, science-based, nationalised industry could be a great success based on excellent collaboration between management and the staff. The staff were represented by the trade unions. I was an active member of the Electrical Power Engineers’ Association and for my final few months I was the chairman of the Guildford and Leatherhead branch.

An important role of the trade unions, as seen by then a very junior engineer, was holding meetings addressed by very senior managers coming down from London about the strategic developments of the CEGB as its technology changed and new investments had to be explained. These meetings explained the related decision-making going on in Parliament, which led to the CEGB moving to nuclear energy, as well as coal and oil. In fact, that was when I began to understand what subsequently became Pepper v Hart: many decisions being taken were not in the Bill, but were what the Minister said. If they said, “We are going to have nuclear power”, we had it.

Equally important for staff were the trade union-led discussions about pension schemes. That has been one of the tragedies of the last 20 to 30 years: many pension schemes have failed. The role of the trade unions has not been as strong as it should be.

Then, after returning to Cambridge University, I was involved with trade unionists in many different aspects of science and technology. In one case I worked with BALPA—the British Airline Pilots Association—on the problems of landing at Heathrow with all the wakes of the big new hangars there. That was an interesting example of the trade unions working with academia, government agencies and industry. I also learned about another important aspect of the trade union movement: collaboration at a local level. I was very interested, from the environmental point of view, in the questions of traffic and air pollution. We co-ordinated meetings with the Cambridge trades council, the city council and the chamber of commerce in developing a very early stage of pedestrianisation and traffic management. Such activity up and down the country is a very important part of trade unions’ role. In fact, the trade unions could be more visible in this aspect of their work.

Some 25 years later, when I was head of the Met Office, I met the trade unions on my first afternoon for tea. I was then responsible for chairing meetings between the trade unions’ representatives and management. These meetings were organised in parallel with direct meetings between staff, the chief executive and senior management. This has always been the parallel process in companies, particularly in the public sector. It was very important to have the two. As was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Prosser, new management techniques began to be developed, from cascaded management to total quality management—even the business of social and psychological methods in management. It was very interesting. They do it slightly differently in France, but many countries have moved in that direction.

As my noble friend Lady Prosser said, we could do more to introduce these techniques, and not just become behindhand. But it is the UK’s position, and the labour movement has not been particularly strong in wanting to introduce company law so that employees have representatives on company boards. The trade unions did not particularly welcome the recent tentative statement by the Prime Minister that the UK should consider this change. As noble Lords will have read, the newspapers—the Daily Telegraph, in particular—realised that this was a bit too much for the Conservatives as well.

The trade unions have a big role and influence in this country, but not at the same level as in Germany and some eastern European countries, where companies have supervisory boards. The role of the trade unions there has been very strong and guided the policy of big business and industry in dealing with very difficult problems. Germany essentially avoided the disruption that UK industry experienced in the 1970s and 1980s, and its long-term social, economic and political consequences. The TUC and the trade union leaders were not able to agree on the UK moving to the German model. We had the Bullock report, but that was not unanimously agreed to, which was a great loss. But the trade unions have had a very positive role in working with organisations of the European Union, thanks to the strong guidance of Jacques Delors—of whom the famous British newspaper said, “Up yours, Delors”. It was very interesting that at this time he completely changed the attitude of the trade union movement in the UK to Europe: it became very pro-Europe.

At that time our trade unionists were working hand in glove with the organisations of the European Union—it was quite different from the situation over here in the UK. What one hopes, of course, is that with Brexit—or despite Brexit—we will have learned something from the closeness between the trade union movement and the European Commission and have the same kind of closeness in Britain. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on that, if not those of Mrs May.

One of the big questions for this debate is how the trade unions will work with the Government, industry and civil society in future. Will we be even more positive when all employees have greater information? For example, employers might, as they do in the public sector—or used to—inform all members of staff when they join that they can join a trade union and that the subscription could be organised by the management of that organisation. The TUC, of course, in the wider roles mentioned by other noble Lords, has been very effective on social and human questions—in reducing prejudice and maintaining human rights—but trade unions also need to address technical and social issues, some of which I have mentioned.

I am a member of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, which has discussed the extent to which we should have trade unions involved or giving evidence to our committees. I believe that more of that should happen. For example, the role of the trade unions must be very strong in the questions of data availability and the secretive use of data by employers. In the last year or two there has been serious potential malfeasance in the use of data in the construction industry, and that has to some extent been resolved.

In general, workers should have more data about their employers and about the business of their employers, and not suddenly be told, like today, of 4,000 people losing their jobs. There needs to be much more openness about the plans moving forward. Those aspects of business, especially the financial business that affects companies, need to be explained to the staff. I believe we still have a long way to go in that respect. I reiterate that there is much more we should do in terms of information to staff. Does this mean that the UK will follow other countries by introducing other methods by which much more data is available? One of the questions is, is the trade union movement in favour, as I am, of identity cards? It is quite interesting that there is a considerable move: even those who were against identity cards realise that this may be one of the most effective ways of solving security and other problems.

Finally, I look forward to the response of the Minister. I hope he will explain what view the Government take about increasing responsible trade union membership, and how they will encourage the trade unions to work with the public and private sector and to have a greater role in public decision-making, which should include meeting government leaders.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, as another who took part in the earlier stages of this debate, my eye joined with my noble friend Lord Broers in expressing thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for listening to the arguments that were made earlier, and to the Government for showing that the dynamic relationship that sometimes exists between your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons actually improves Bills, even in the febrile context of Brexit. I hope that this result today on Motion A, which I certainly support, will be a clear message to those who are given to say glibly that your Lordships’ House is merely trying to wreck Brexit. That is just not true. What is happening this afternoon is clear evidence, which the Government should cite, that there can be constructive work between the two Houses to improve even the legislation on this very difficult issue.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the features of this provision is that it does not mention the exact question of finance. Clearly, we are working on some large and expensive programmes, particularly on fusion. In replying, will the Minister comment on whether new budgets will have to be created for the new arrangements, or will they fit within the existing budgets?

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest that I share with my noble friend the Minister: we are both Cumbrians. Obviously, Cumbria is deeply affected by the nuclear sector, which is potentially very hazardous both to those who are engaged with it and to those living close to it. Therefore, having the strongest possible safeguards in place, which I believe that this amendment will help to bring about, is a great reassurance to those who would be affected should anything go wrong.

Just as my noble friend the Minister is absolutely certain that his house is not going to burn down, I am sure that that has not stopped him taking out an insurance policy. Equally, the Government, who are convinced that Brexit will take place, should recognise nevertheless that there is a possibility that, for various reasons, something may not happen as they hope. Having the strongest form of reassurance in the Bill in this regard is important because it is something to which those who might be affected were something to go wrong will be able to turn.

Brexit: Energy Security (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, the effect of Brexit on nuclear energy will be critical for the United Kingdom. I declare my interests as an energy scientist and a consultant for a company, Tokamak Energy, which is progressing a private sector approach to fusion. I was formerly chief executive at the Met Office and learned something there about the unpredictability of weather, which is an important part of energy, as has already been mentioned.

As agreed this afternoon, and as endorsed by this report, it is essential for the UK to remain as a working state within Euratom, both for standard and regulatory activities but also in dealing with long-term nuclear issues. The UK is still a very significant nuclear country, both nationally and internationally, through its membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It also has bilateral arrangements, which we will discuss this evening. For example, the IAEA is a vital forum, with other north-western countries of Europe, for dealing with radioactive material that leaks into the sea and, to a smaller extent, the atmosphere. The UK must have high-level scientists who are well respected in order to ensure that these international negotiations are well conducted. It is very important that the UK should have enough nuclear scientists and engineers at the highest international level. It was encouraging to hear today from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, that the Government will be maintaining and contributing to this programme with some money. I suspect it might need more than the £10 million he mentioned, but that will certainly be necessary for us to maintain this at a high level.

One issue we have already discussed today is the need for the Government to allow migration to the UK to enable the UK nuclear industry to expand as the Government intend. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has recently been discussing improved, more efficient methods of construction. Of course, one of the biggest construction projects in the UK at the moment is the Hinkley Point nuclear power station. Interestingly, in order to speed up productivity, which my noble friend Lord Rooker described vividly, new techniques are being developed by a company we investigated. Some new methods are emerging from this, but it is extremely important to relate technology to the people in order to effect it.

The Government and the nuclear industry also need to have a big leadership role in defining the UK’s long-range strategy, working with Euratom and the IAEA. One of most long-term, most profound problems is dealing with radioactive waste. Maintaining its existing waste is a major expenditure for the UK, which has very advanced technology to deal with this. The question is what will happen as we continue to expand our nuclear energy, as other countries do, and what to do with this waste. This is an area where Euratom has had some innovative R&D in the past. The current idea, of course, is to put it in geological repositories, but in such a way that it could be extracted if some new technology emerges. This has been a Euratom programme for some years and it is very important that the UK is part of it.

In the long term, there may be a possibility of combining the extraction of nuclear waste and turning it into material that has a very much shorter reaction time, and to use the technology of fusion power. Developing fusion power is the main scientific and technology programme in Europe. It started in 1980, but in collaboration with major countries such as the USA, Japan, China, Russia and others. However, progress has been much slower than was envisaged when it started; the original prospect of electrical power is now not likely before 2040, as has been stated by Euratom and other organisations. This was discussed at a Royal Society meeting in March.

The UK’s contribution to this international programme comes through the Culham laboratory. What is interesting now is that the Government are putting their money into this international, very long-range programme. A whole new approach has in fact begun to emerge. This really came about through new ideas of plasma physics, from the Culham laboratory, and new computations. Most importantly, it came about because we can now have superconducting magnets at a considerably higher temperature—about 30k as opposed to 1k. This has led to the concept of a much smaller, modular fusion reactor that will deliver practical power by 2025: in other words, seven years from now.

This Tokamak project, amazingly, is funded by the private sector, including insurance companies, charities and private funding organisations, including a big company owned by a prominent member of the Conservatives. There was a press statement today, which I can refer noble Lords to, about the latest progress and how temperatures now, in this contained fusion, exceed the temperatures at the centre of the sun—15 million degrees. The International Atomic Energy Agency described this as the leading innovative idea in fusion worldwide. I very much hope that the UK’s influence in Euratom will continue and will ensure that innovative private sector contributions work at the same time and in collaboration with state-funded contributions.

We hope that fusion reactors will be providing this power but while the source of power is one thing, one of the most extraordinary possibilities that motivates much of the research is that, with the neutron flux in these smaller devices it will be possible to bombard and transform radioactive waste, which of course is developing all over the world. That could then decay in 100 years as opposed to lasting, in current plans, perhaps 10,000 years, which is hardly a sustainable policy. I hope that Euratom and the UK Government will encourage this and other private sector advanced fusion systems. We need great leadership across Europe.

Brexit: Competition and State Aid (EUC Report)

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wei, and his remarks about the growth of some SMEs having been deterred by aggressive financial pressures. I also welcome this report of the House of Lords EU sub-committee, under the fine chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Whitty. I am not a member of that committee, but the document we have received is excellent.

Over the years, one has noticed that the UK Government’s policies on competition and state aid have varied according to the political parties taking power, unlike in major European countries, where there has been more consistency over the years. My own experience of state funding, research and development has been as a research scientist in various universities, as a director and consultant of technological companies in the UK and in European countries, and as director of the Met Office, which certainly benefited from UK and European state funding, to the great benefit of its technological development. I have declared these interests in the register.

Recently, I have also been a member of the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, which received evidence from larger companies about how smaller UK companies—SMEs—were making limited use of state aid from the European Commission. The larger companies were concerned about what will happen to these smaller companies, which are of course part of the chain feeding into the large companies. There was general criticism of the policies of the coalition Government, which withdrew funding from regional development agencies in 2010. There has really been no proper substitute for that—and this does not come from me, a Labour person; it was a big company commenting on this. There has since been some return to regional development agencies, with limited funds available to local enterprise bodies. Perhaps they will be expanded in future.

The question is: what will happen after Brexit and will the funding and organisational arrangements be as effective as possible? It would be interesting to hear from the Minister how the UK will collaborate with the European Commission on state-aided funding and competition. The most significant statistics about the levels of state aid are given in the House of Commons briefing paper, which other noble Lords have referred to, including my noble friend Lord Whitty. Some 0.35% of capital is used by the UK on state aid, 0.62% in France and 1.22% in Germany, which shows that other European countries are using state aid more readily and extensively than the UK. The UK could expand its state aid to industry, whether in or out of the European Commission, as my noble friend Lord Whitty emphasised. But how should state aid be applied most effectively for industrial and technological strategies and/or for general development in the UK—for the economy, infrastructure and the environment?

Very noticeable—though other noble Lords have not mentioned it—is the wording of the Government’s response to recommendation 17, and I suggest that noble Lords read it. It shows, surprisingly, the continuing government ambivalence about state aid, which may be relevant in future:

“Rather than propping up failing industries or picking winners, the Government is keen to create the conditions where successful businesses can emerge and grow in all industries and sectors”.


The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury was here earlier; perhaps he would have been able to exactly parse this very subtly worded remark. Nevertheless, the deprecatory remark of “picking winners” still seems part of government thinking. It is not seen that way by other European countries. By contrast, in France and Germany, there is total enthusiasm for support for all kinds of industry, including those that might be in danger on a national basis and those that might be “winners”. As my noble Friend, Lord Chandos said, there was a famous French case of supporting the yoghurt industry. It was laughed at in Britain by the Financial Times and elsewhere, but has in fact proved very successful. The other important feature, which, again, other noble Lords have not emphasised, is that state aid in France, Germany and Spain, as I have seen, is strong and differentiated between the national, regional and even sub-regional levels. You can see how it works. For example, in Toulouse, there was a local campaign to develop industry, with a target of hiring 10,000 engineering technicians and others as it was developed.

In its policy of standing by, the UK has seen the decline of certain of our major industries, such as electrical engineering, and the leadership role in Airbus—the UK is now a contractor, whereas it used to lead it with France and Germany. Big elements of the manufacture of steel rails, on which we were a world leader, now happen in the Netherlands. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, emphasised, state aid is vital in the devolved regions. The UK Government seem unable to understand the implications of their policy. The House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology has been studying industrial strategy in relation to life sciences, and its report was produced a couple of weeks ago. The Government have stated their aim of developing new and large pharmaceutical companies that will have many billions of pounds’ turnover—that is their ambition—over the next 20 years. But how will those winners be chosen or evolve if the Government do not believe in “picking winners”, which surely should be strategically developed through collaboration between industry, the National Health Service and research? Foreign pharmaceutical companies are always impressed, as they reported to our committee, with the research, but are not so impressed with the UK being the place for economic investment.

In developing the UK’s future energy supply, state aid will be essential and done in collaboration with state-aided and private companies in other countries. There should be no hesitation in identifying critical areas: wind energy, fission and fusion. These are also consistent with the necessary global environmental goal of reducing carbon emissions, which is a very strong aim of the Government and supported by all the major parties. I declare an interest in this area.

I note that the Government have in the last few months chosen certain companies and technologies for their large and smaller state-aided investments in these areas. However, no one is quite clear how these decisions are being made and how they will be made in future. That is the big question about state aid: who decides who receives it? That remains an imponderable, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply to that.

The other feature is that there will be other vital strategic uses of state aid, which must surely include the development of new industrial products allied to government regulation and overseas aid. Most recently, that applies in particular to the changes in the use of disposable plastics, with enormous volumes now going to the oceans, with unknown health and environmental consequences. This is a remarkable new environmental danger that has emerged in the past two years, and the Government are now gripping that problem. However, tremendous investment will be needed to find solutions in this area. Regrettably, at a recent EU meeting—literally last week—the European Commission, working with industry and environmental organisations, failed to agree on an industrial, commercial and regulatory basis. But that will be the place where this enormously important issue will be discussed. The question, which goes back to my earlier remark, is how the UK will be involved in such strategic issues, because as sure as eggs is eggs, that is where the big issues will be decided. That is an example of where state aid should be applied urgently, as we discussed last week at a meeting of the All-Party Group for Polar Regions. This is also an example of how the UK will have to continue to work with the EU on all the big issues of science, economics and government.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne]

My Lords, for at least 20 years this country allowed its specialist skills in matters nuclear to run down. There was a failure by successive Governments to address the issues and determine what our attitude was to policy on nuclear generation, medical sciences and the like. Although things have improved a little in recent years, it is certain that we will depend on specialist skills from overseas. I doubt that it is really necessary to put this amendment on the face of the Bill, but I am absolutely confident that the Minister will agree that we will indeed need specialist skills. We must give an assurance to the industry that those specialist skills will be welcomed. Therefore, I am sure that, in responding to this short debate led by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the Minister can assure us that the Government will give due priority to those with the relevant nuclear skills.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, an important point about Euratom is that it had a research programme on connecting fusion and fission. A long-range problem in the nuclear industry is finding ways of dealing with nuclear waste. As the Euratom programme showed, one way of doing that in future would be to connect it to fusion, because fusion produces fast neutrons that can process waste and give it a shorter half-life. That is an extremely important issue, and the people who will be able to work on it will have a very broad range of specialties, not just the narrow range that experts have at the moment.

[Lord Grantchester]

I commend the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Warner, for bringing back this amendment on Report. It concerns an important issue: that the UK must address the skills that are needed in the UK. The problem of labour supply with the necessary skills beyond those present and available in the UK will need to be addressed by several industries—and none more crucial than the power industry, in relation not only to new build but to the continuing need for decommissioning.

EDF is certainly correct to identify the importance of the specialisms needed to deliver Hinkley Point C on time. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, drew attention to this and to the Immigration Rules. With restrictions on freedom of movement, currently no route is identified for the many categories of workers to enter the UK under the points system in order to fill the vacancies envisaged. It is crucial that the Minister’s department underlines the importance of the issue to the Home Office and comes up with a solution. It will be needed in the best interests of the UK’s civil nuclear industry.

Nuclear Research and Technology (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important debate as Parliament once again considers nuclear research and technology and how it should be organised in future. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, for chairing our committee very well. I declare an interest, having worked in the past on research and advice in civil nuclear fission associated with industry in the CEGB, the UKAEA and EDF Energy, and more recently on fusion, first with the Culham fusion laboratory and then with the commercial Tokamak Energy.

As the report by the House of Lords committee concludes, the UK’s planning and co-ordination of civil nuclear fission power stations has not led to investment in fission construction—really, from the 1970s onwards. In his evidence to the committee, a director of EDF Energy, Mr Xavier Mamo, was asked how they did things in France. If you look at paragraph 29, you will see his very complete description. He described the strategic governance of the nuclear fission industry by the French Government and said that there was high-level political participation in the committee. Over 50 years, nuclear-powered electricity expanded to 80% of the total. A strong feature was the involvement of top engineers and scientists—for example, École des Mines—with access to the highest levels of government.

By contrast, the UK has had a number of different technical bodies, listed on page 9 of our report, for its research, technology and regulatory tasks, with different sources of funding. Our committee was not impressed by the current co-ordinating body of NIRAB, set up in 2014. At points 9 and 10 of the Government’s response, they announced the creation of a successor to NIRAB, but they could not find time to give it a new name. I gather that the name is likely to stay the same. Surprisingly, the new body is apparently only for nuclear fission; there is no reference to fusion research and technology, which will play a significant role in future energy systems. Is the new NIRAB membership restricted to non-commercial bodies, even in key areas of expertise, which would then be omitted? Can the Minister clarify that in his response? This high-level independent body should review and promote the appropriate public and private nuclear systems to be considered. It should take a strong role in participating in international programmes such as the fourth generation system, and international bodies such as the IAEA and the future form of and connectivity with Euratom.

This body should also involve the UK’s two significant fusion programmes. One is run by the UKAEA at the Culham laboratory, which also works in collaboration with Euratom. The second, totally unmentioned in all government statements, is the very large and significant commercial Tokamak Energy system. I know from other parts of my life that you can do some extraordinary work and the Minister can announce it in the House of Commons, but then there is no reference in any public document to this commercial activity. Sometimes you feel that the parties are swapping on the other side of the House. This company, Tokamak Energy, whose publications are now the most cited of any fusion project in the world, is in Britain, in Didcot. Is it referenced? No, it is not.

An important part of the Government’s response is their outline proposal that the UK should start soon on a programme of constructing small modular reactors, such as the Rolls-Royce proposal for constructing about 10 400-megawatt nuclear fission devices, pressurised water reactors, which could be operational in about five years. Sites have been specified and identified, some of which are in critical parts of the UK, where the northern powerhouse could participate. The UK’s construction of submarines, which is where this technology was developed, involved stressful conditions, ensuring that these reactors will be very reliable. I understand that already some overseas countries are expressing interest in buying UK-proposed SMRs.

The new NIRAB should also address the long-term challenge of developing nuclear energy fusion, so that there will be no need for mining uranium or processing past and present nuclear waste. It will take hundreds of years even to deal with that waste, but not the tens of thousands of years into the future when we have nuclear waste either in concrete underground or in other processes. Such very long-term issues need to be discussed by the new body, and it needs to bring in all the people and organisations who can contribute.

Euratom

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for introducing this important debate and for the masterly way in which he did so. I declare an interest, like some of my colleagues, having worked in various aspects of atomic energy. I am chairman of the advisory committee of Tokamak Energy, which is a private sector fusion project.

Euratom has several vital roles which affect us—from timescales of a few hours, as we have been hearing in medical examples, to a long-term programme of dealing with nuclear waste of up to 100,000 years. Some people may remember the famous interchange between the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, and one of our Welsh colleagues here who asked if he really believed in transmutation. The point is that we have a very wide range of interests in working with Euratom—or whatever is done to continue that work.

The other aspect, of course, is fission. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rightly pointed out that fission power is a significant part of our power. Importantly, it is not just 20% of our power but continues when, for example, renewable power is unable to operate. Fission power is very important throughout the world.

The important point about Euratom is, of course, that it not only provides the fissile material for reactors but deals with nuclear waste. Nuclear waste brings us to the 100,000-year question. Are we going to put our waste in geological reserves, or are we going to deal with it in a long-term scientific way, destroying it so that it will have a short half-life? That is one of Euratom’s programmes. It is the only organisation in the world that is thinking in a long-term way about the different ways of dealing with nuclear waste.

Finally, Euratom has a very important role in co-ordinating the European contribution to the global project on fusion. Fusion energy, as you may know, uses water. There was the famous joke of the Giles cartoon in the 1950s, saying, “Are we going to run out of water?” because we were so effective at using this energy. We are not going to run out of water, but the fusion programme is very important and produces no waste. The fusion processes may be one way of getting rid of waste, of which we have a great deal from the fission process.

Euratom leads the global experiment, which started with JET, which is still at Culham. That will transfer into ITER, which is the international Tokamak in France. The UK plays a major role in these programmes, and how that will happen has to be negotiated. There was an article in the newspapers about the UK fusion programme.

Interestingly, we are now developing a private sector approach. If you are going to have a private sector operation, it needs a regulatory framework, and the way we work with Euratom should include that aspect. Also, as other noble Lords have said, Euratom is vital for the UK’s involvement in the International Atomic Energy Agency. We look forward to hearing from the Minister how that will continue.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, despite its brevity, the Queen’s Speech emphasises that our Government and Parliament have a great responsibility for many critical issues affecting the future of the UK and the countries of the world. I agree with other noble Peers that dealing with global climate change for present and future generations has been accepted by most Governments as the most serious of these global issues. Most countries signed the Paris accord in 2015, although regrettably the US Government have withdrawn from it. I ask the Minister to assure the House that the UK will join with other major countries at the forthcoming G20 conference in Berlin in asserting again its commitment, as, of course, Mrs Merkel has already.

The UK can be proud not only of its diplomacy, which led to consensus in Parliament for the then Climate Change Bill, but of its participation in leading research that contributed to international consensus about the past processes of climate change and the future trends of rising temperatures in the atmosphere, ocean and land areas caused by rising emissions of carbon dioxide. There is now a practical consensus that over this century these emissions will be greatly reduced—the UK target for reduction is by 80%—but this is possible only if new sources of clean energy become available throughout the world.

There are great opportunities for the UK to develop renewable wind and solar energy. Even Saudi Arabia is moving away from petroleum and developing solar energy. The UK is also investing in advanced nuclear fission and fusion systems. I declare an interest. The environmental impact of these systems will also have to be managed in collaboration with other countries and international organisations, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and Euratom. It is essential that the UK should positively expand its involvement in these national and international environmental and energy organisations. There will be a Bill, as the Minister said, on dealing with the consequences of leaving Euratom, and that will be a very important piece of legislation.

As I have said in the past, the House of Lords should receive more regular reports about these international bodies, which are so important to trade, the environment and communications. We have had almost no debates on this. I have organised two in the 17 years that I have been here and this goes by default. Select Committees could also be more involved in this aspect of UK governance.

Although local conservation of fisheries, which was brought up by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, is an important issue, it is also important to realise that we have to think about fisheries on an oceanic scale. Again, I have been involved in ACOPS, which sits on some of these bodies. Following urgent environmental and infrastructure safety problems in the UK, which we have been seeing in the last few years and most urgently in the last couple of weeks, HMG need to consider the governance and openness of the responsible governmental and private organisations, and how the latest science and technology can be used.

I speak as a former chief executive of the Met or Meteorological Office—although some people think that it is another kind of Met—which I am pleased to see remains a world-class governmental agency despite several attempts by Governments of all parties to privatise it. Other well-known governmental laboratories have been privatised and universally spin off companies to provide valuable services. I declare an interest there. The question for the UK is how these privatised ex-governmental organisations should be involved in these critical governmental questions. That has been a hidden question during the last week. An alternative is to involve professional bodies such as the Hazards Forum, which brings together all the engineering institutions and quasi-governmental bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive. Again, I declare an interest.

Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, emphasised this afternoon, as the Government, Parliament and industry review the technical solutions to these challenges and the production and design of UK products, the need is to consider how UK schools, universities and training colleges can compete with leading institutions around the world, for example by making sure that our children do homework, which is rather rare in some schools. It is important that these institutions should educate more qualified engineers and scientists. If not, as industry is urging, the UK will need to expand the number of immigrants with advanced qualifications, assuming they have the confidence in how they are treated when they arrive. I was pleased to hear that identity cards are being considered again. That may be essential in future.