Science and Technology Committee: Nuclear Research and Development
Debate between Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Lord Marland
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her star performance at the Dispatch Box. Of course, there have been star performances overall. We have a galaxy of scientific brains here. I wore my special tie with stars on it because I knew there would be. Of course, this report is a credit to the House of Lords, on which I congratulate the committee and its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs—and, of course, for his work on the climate change committee, for which we in our department are so grateful. Of course, as you can imagine, a lot of this is way above my head. I was reflecting on my own school report the other day, and pulled it out to see what it said about my science O-level. It was one simple sentence: “This boy will not be a scientist”.
Therefore, it is no surprise that the committee did not call me to give evidence, because I am not sure I could have added much other than some of my limited business experience of a few years. One point that is fundamental to understanding this nuclear issue is that for 27 years we have had no nuclear business. We have had nothing to export and no expertise to grow because there has been no future for the younger generations that have been mentioned to work into. Because there has been no activity in the nuclear world, we have also had the brain drain. I have been quite interested in what this committee would have said had it come up with this report five years ago and am slightly depressed by some things that some noble Lords have said about the Government not doing enough.
I want to mention some of the things that we have done. We have been in power for two years, in which time we have identified and given clearance for eight nuclear sites to go ahead. We have persuaded companies to come back and invest in the United Kingdom. We brought planning back to the Secretary of State so that we can clear the decks for a lot of the planning issues that are there. We have agreed and brought into law provisions, which were drawn in this House, for two new nuclear reactors so that they can be used immediately. We have dealt with the appalling mess, which preceding Governments should be ashamed of, over the decommissioning waste that was left up at Sellafield. I have brought in a plan whereby waste is going to be exported from all of our shockingly badly managed waste pools during this Parliament. We have revolutionised the security of our nuclear power stations and have set a very clear mandate for those investing in nuclear in this country about their security requirements. We have totally overhauled the civil nuclear police force, in a process that has happened very quickly—it is not quite finished yet, but is happening now. We have announced electricity market reform and contracts for difference to set the framework for a clear pathway for investment. On decommissioning, I have persuaded the Treasury, amid the appalling economic climate that we have inherited, to invest £10 billion of new money in our nuclear waste and decommissioning. We have made very significant strides. To touch on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, we have committed and commissioned a business case for a Mox plant, which will solve the huge plutonium pile that we have inherited as a Government.
If that is not enough, think of the backdrop that we have inherited—Fukushima, Switzerland and Germany withdrawing from nuclear as a result, and the appalling balance sheets that E.On and RWE have as a result of Germany withdrawing. I do not need to dwell on it for too long, but we have inherited unprecedented economic conditions that have made investment into anything new by any industries, let alone by Government, extremely vulnerable and volatile. However, it is not all bad. The UK has come out of it as a world leader—not a world leader in the technology but in the way that it reacted to those horrific events at Fukushima. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned, we are indebted to the work of Mike Weightman, who has, in a great credit to our country, been asked to come up with a report for the future of nuclear. We noble Lords have, as a group, responded with great diligence and calmness to all the activity going on, and this report adds to the momentum that we are trying to create.
Because we have now got our inherited nuclear industry into better shape, we have started exporting our skills abroad. It was only last week that I hosted the entire Abu Dhabi nuclear organisation and their security people here. We are now signing a memorandum of understanding and supplying security expertise and waste management expertise to them. We have a draft memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia to do the same. Of course, as regards the continued fall-out from Japan, we are right at the forefront of advising on it. It is a question of getting that export focus and the confidence back into our industry. Despite our not being in the vanguard of new nuclear, we still have terrific expertise in this country of which we should be proud.
We readily dismiss the assertion that we are not investing enough in R and D. We have spent £500 million on R and D through the NDA in the past four years. That is not an inconsiderable amount of money. We have invested £20 million on R and D on fission alone in the past four years. Therefore, it is not all bad news. There is a lot of good news. I hope that the committee will give us some credit for that.
I now wish to deal quickly, as I know that the noble Lord, Lord Winston—
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
Is the Minister saying that the figures on this page of the report are misleading?
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
I am referring to paragraph 19, which gives comparators of government-funded research.
Weightman Report
Debate between Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Lord Marland
Lord Marland
As always, we have had an object lesson in nuclear science from someone who really understands it. I would just add that three people died as a result of this incident—part of the 25,000 rumoured to be in the tsunami. One died from exhaustion and one from actually going outside the bounds of where he was allowed to operate. So this has been an incredible result in the horrific accident that happened along that coastline. The most important point that the noble Lord is asking us to consider and understand is that we must not be complacent. We must take on board these things. We owe it to the nation as a whole and this Government are not going to be complacent. We are determined to learn the lessons and to act accordingly.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, I welcome both this report, which is wide-ranging and international in its scope, and the positive statement from the Minister about the future of UK nuclear power.
Nuclear safety is highly advanced in Japan, the United States and Europe, more so than in some other significant areas of technology. That point was made in the recent high-level United States Government report, by the dean of physics and engineering at Harvard, in a review of last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil platform incident—the report was actually a very interesting study of how nuclear safety is conducted around the world. For example, nuclear technologies analyse and measure tiny, fluctuating signals and how they are correlated. I have seen this as a mathematician. We are building on that.
The other issue is that the long-term policy for nuclear waste is not a safety issue but a political issue in the context of nuclear power. Therefore, the Government in making their future plans must also connect with their policy for first storing and then perhaps reprocessing wastes to reduce their radioactive life. This is perhaps an area in which the Government also need to address the question.
As the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, pointed out, the other important issue is how nuclear power stations withstand external impacts. The Japanese incident showed that some aspects worked while others did not. One reason why they did not was because of the storage of wastes on site. That shows how safety is very much a matter of management as well as of technology—again, as the US report noted—in dealing with these major accidents. The question of interaction between different organisations is a critical part, which the report of Dr Weightman indeed mentions.
Will the Minister, in his commitment to develop UK technology and science in nuclear energy, which is part of the government programme, ensure that it is international and also that expertise is a strong element of management?
Energy Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Lord Marland(13 years, 4 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
Picking up on the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made, she used the word “ventilation”. I keep looking through the Bill to see where the word “ventilation” is. I made this point on Second Reading. It is really important that when you are considering the energy of a house, you consider ventilation. You gain or lose a huge amount of heat in that way. Nobody could possibly have an energy system without that. Obviously, one aspect of ventilation is to do with energy; another aspect is to do with safety, comfort and so on. Some kinds of housing would require new ventilation, and that should be part of the cost. I also raised the point on Second Reading as to whether this could be included as part of the Green Deal funding. From a technical point of view, it seems that it would be very eccentric not to include that, so I hope that that is considered as part of the Bill. It may be that ventilation and safety should be considered in a more general clause.
Lord Marland
My Lords, I thought that I had an explanation of why there are so many amendments, but my noble friend Lady Noakes has put the cat among the pigeons by reversing what I thought was the case; but, as I said, we will get there in the end.
Clause 3 gives the Secretary of State powers to establish in regulations a scheme for authorising persons to act as Green Deal assessors, Green Deal providers and Green Deal installers, and provides for a code of conduct regulating these Green Deal participants. Subsequent Clauses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 deal with each step of this process in more detail and make provisions for customer redress. Correspondingly, Clause 28 enables the Secretary of State to delegate related regulatory functions to a public body.
Appropriate regulation of the Green Deal participants is vital if the customer is to be able to trust in the quality of the Green Deal itself. At the heart of this clause, therefore, is the ability to issue a code of practice with which Green Deal participants must comply.
I will now speak to Amendments 2B, 2C, 2E, 5A, 7B, 7BA, 7C, 8A and 8B, as they all relate to how we best protect Green Deal customers. I welcome the thrust of all these proposals, but I do not think they are ones that we should incorporate into this clause or elsewhere in the Bill at this time. Let me explain why. Amendments 2B, 2E, 5A and 8B seek to ensure that the scheme and code of practice hold customer protections. I would like to thank all noble Lords for highlighting through their amendments the importance of the framework regulation described in Clause 3. It is vital therefore that customers are able to recognise that the scheme benefits from quality assurance and is properly regulated. Without this degree of confidence the Green Deal simply does not work. More importantly, we must ensure that the consumer does not suffer from mis-selling in any way. This means that there must be accurate consumer information provided from suitably qualified and trained people. We cannot afford to make the same mistakes that have been made elsewhere, notably in Australia, where the Green Start scheme was axed due to quality-related problems.
I reassure noble Lords that we will indeed be using powers established by this clause to protect customers. However, we will do so only where existing legal provisions or other mechanisms for securing consumer protection are not already in existence on this basis. I hope that on this basis, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 7BA seeks to have carbon monoxide alarms installed in properties as part of the Green Deal. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, discussed the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning on Second Reading, and I am extremely grateful to her for raising this important issue. The risks of carbon monoxide poisoning are potentially very grave, and I recognise the important role played by alarms in saving lives.
The Bill establishes the framework for installation but the detail of these conditions and the measures will be set out in secondary legislation following consultation with stakeholders. This will allow us time to consider in more detail whether the suggested approach would be the best and most cost-effective way of addressing carbon monoxide build-up. I am grateful for the additional comments of my noble friend Lady Noakes; they will help us decide how we can best help and consider this vital suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff.
I fully take on board the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, about ventilation. We shall consider those during this process.
On Amendment 7C, Clause 3 gives the Secretary of State powers to establish in regulations a scheme for authorising persons to act as Green Deal assessors, Green Deal providers and Green Deal installers, and for a code of conduct regulating these Green Deal participants. It also allows for a body to be authorised so that its members are in turn authorised to act as Green Deal participants. We are committed to underpinning the Green Deal with high standards, but it is important not to be held to a requirement if, in time, a different approach becomes relevant or necessary. This approach is reflected throughout the Green Deal provisions of the Bill.
Finally, Amendment 8 seeks to require that any services provided or products sold by Green Deal participants, in addition to those paid for through Green Deal finance, should also be subject to the Green Deal regulatory framework. Amendments 2C and 7B similarly seek to extend the Green Deal framework specifically, the accreditation of Green Deal participants and any marketing requirements under the code of conduct to apply to energy plans—energy efficiency improvements offered by Green Deal participants without Green Deal finance.
The amendments raise an important issue—the need to safeguard against homeowners being sold measures by Green Deal providers that, unknown to them, do not benefit from the same regulations as Green Deal. However, it does not follow that the whole of the Green Deal framework could be applied appropriately to any other product or service.
I reassure noble Lords that we will be able to require, through the overall scheme and code, that customers are made fully aware of the difference between those measures being offered that fall under the Green Deal scheme with all its safeguards, and those that fall outside. We will not accept companies using Green Deal accreditation as cover for less appropriate goods and services. Furthermore, Clause 3(7) extends the scheme or code to energy-efficiency plans that are not Green Deal plans and provides a power to impose additional requirements on energy-efficiency providers.
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Debate between Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Lord Marland
Lord Marland
I thank the noble Lord, my coalition colleague, for his kind remarks. I was rather heartened by the recent pictures that I saw in the papers of the effort being put in to saving the pelicans, although I do not know how true they are, because you can never believe everything you see in pictures. That effort has been paid for by someone, and I suspect that BP has a strong hand in ensuring that it takes place, because it is deeply committed to restoring the Gulf to where it was. New technologies will of course be looked at carefully. This demonstrates that the world is searching high and low for carbon-intensive energy, and we are moving towards scraping the barrel. As I said earlier, we have to accelerate our low-carbon development because this is a massive environmental wake-up call, so of course we will be looking at the new technology.
As I also said earlier, I think that the rhetoric and conversation between President Obama and our Prime Minister was exactly what one would want to hear following this recent tragedy, in that it was calm, sensible and not inflammatory, as has been reported. That is what is required in solving any problem.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, I think it would be as well to recall the remarks of the American ambassador for fisheries and oceans, Mr Bolton, who commented four years ago that many parts of the Gulf of Mexico were ecologically dead due to the vast quantities of nitrogen coming down the Mississippi. Enormous areas of that ocean are in a very bad state. I do not want to go into what is tiny or trivial; an integrated approach is important to the whole ecology of the Gulf of Mexico in the context of this accident and indeed other incidents. In the UK we have the Natural Environment Research Council, and I strongly recommend the Minister to get in touch with it. We have excellent scientists who are able to take an overall view and from that we can perhaps then get a more rational approach.
Lord Marland
My Lords, one of the great things about a debate such as this is that one learns so much. I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s comments on nitrogen flowing from the Mississippi; it is true that we have a very heavily polluted world. As I said earlier, if nothing else, I hope that this will be a massive environmental wake-up call, and I should like to take up the opportunity of meeting the noble Lord’s colleagues.