Nuclear Sector Deal

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Owen, and to follow such a well-considered speech by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton). I thank him for what he said about Barrow, and for the components that his constituents so expertly make. I also thank him for the adept way in which he raised the need and the opportunities for deeper collaboration between the military and civil nuclear sectors. That is the only way I can excuse the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) for what seemed like the appalling omission of Barrow shipyard from his roll-call of the fantastic components of Cumbria’s economy.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) on securing this debate. I have worked closely with her on the collaboration between military and civil nuclear, and I associate myself with all the points that she made in her excellent speech. We want to ensure that south and west Cumbria becomes a global hub of civil and military nuclear excellence. We have world-class skills at Sellafield and Barrow shipyard, and we will have them in time with NuGen—I will say more about that in a moment. We are determined that the area should do more to promote itself as one travel-to-work area, look outwards to the world and give a joint message about what we can do together.

We need support from the Government to do that. It is great to see the Minister here, not least because the debate gives him the opportunity to answer questions that he was unable to answer last week, when he was not in the House for my urgent question on the nuclear sector deal. In that urgent question, I raised our need for support from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for our bid to better connect south and west Cumbria, not simply metaphorically but literally and physically. We need the support of BEIS in order to persuade the Department for Transport that the transport links in our area, notably the A595 along the Cumbria coastline, which is in an appalling state, need to be addressed.

[John Stevenson]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important to have joined-up thinking within Government in this area? Yes, this is the nuclear sector deal, but it goes beyond nuclear. We need to get the Department for Transport, the Treasury and BEIS involved, so that we address issues such as the A595, which he rightly points out is badly in need of improvement.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I thank him for his continued support on the campaign to get the A595 to work. The Department for Education needs to be part of that joined-up thinking, because one of our other big challenges—the deal touches on this, but it is felt particularly acutely in south and west Cumbria—is raising our school standards. We have some of the most advanced jobs it is possible to have, certainly in the large-scale manufacturing projects in Barrow shipyard, yet we have school leavers with lower than average numeracy and literacy. That cannot be right, and we all need to work together to raise those standards, so that the workers we will need in future are capable of doing the tasks we need them to do from the moment they leave school.

Finally, the Minister needs to answer vital questions about the future of the Moorside development in west Cumbria. It would be unconscionable if that development did not go ahead. What the hon. Member for Copeland said about the regulated asset base is absolutely right, but this is a perilous moment for the NuGen deal. We need to hear from the Government that they will stand by the development come what may, be it with a regulated asset base or something else, and that they will not allow Moorside to stall, given the many thousands of jobs and the energy security it would bring, which are crucial to the nation. The Minister can give that message today, and we in Cumbria need to hear it.