European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Broers

Committee: 8th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers]

I want to point out two things in response to the noble Viscount. First, I have introduced this amendment because research and development was ruled by the Public Bill Office to be outside the remit of the safeguards Bill, so it had to be brought here. Secondly, the fusion projects are large and collaborative; they are not projects where we can decide what we want to do and where we want to do it. We would be hopelessly underresourced if we did not join these European projects. That is why we have to join them. At the moment, we are major players in them and have always been so, but we have relatively small resources. ITER costs €13 billion—it has to cost that amount. It is certainly worth that amount. It is a tiny fraction of what we spend on energy, but, unless we collaborate with the other nations in this project, we will be nowhere.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I recall many years ago in private practice acting on the instruction of the late Lord Weinstock to fix the price of Hunterston A. At that time, we were in the very lead of nuclear energy development. I regret to say that I have the feeling that we are slightly less in the lead now than we were then. I do not have anything like the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Broers, but I want to emphasise the need to ensure the important place of nuclear energy in our future plans.