Energy: Nuclear New Build Programme

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, if we are talking about complacency, I would remind the noble Lord that his party was in Government for 13 years and failed to look at long-term investment in the energy sector. This Government have taken that on board. I remind the noble Lord that the decision that Centrica took was, as with the other two companies he mentioned, a commercial prioritisation and nothing to do with UK policy. If the noble Lord will allow me, I will quote Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica. He said the decision was about the prioritisation of its commercial priorities.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I share the concerns about Centrica and discussed them at some length yesterday with EDF. I have a much more serious concern to raise with my noble friend. I am very worried about how the Cumbria county councillors were persuaded to vote against moving to the next stage of a nuclear waste consultation. I will quote from an e-mail that was inadvertently sent to a Copeland councillor, and obviously sent by an anti-nuclear campaigner. It contains a chilling message. It says that they need a campaign to tell the councillors of,

“the threat that they might be personally liable for irrational or reckless decisions, particularly ones which do not put care of their constituency at their heart”.

It goes on that,

“the point is, to scare the crap out of them personally when they go to vote”.

Is that any way to treat a serious government consultation? Why is it no one’s business to try to rebut these mischievous statements that have circulated around the county over the past three months?

[Baroness Verma]

I thank my noble friend for drawing my attention to that. I invite him to forward me the e-mail that he quoted so that my officials might look at it in closer detail. I know that passions were raised on both sides of the argument in Cumbria, but that is right and proper in a democratic process. However, my noble friend is right that a lot of scaremongering and misleading information was distributed out there. Unfortunately, when we go down the road of ensuring that this is a community-led, voluntary process, one of the by-products is that there will be misleading information. I will look very carefully at that and if it is something that I need to raise further and looks as if it is intimidation, I will take it as a matter perhaps for the police to look at.