National Policy Statements

Debate between Lord Walney and Charles Hendry

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charles Hendry]

I am keen to reassure my hon. Friend. A couple of years ago, the outlook was a cause for great concern. The recession reduced demand by 5% or 6%, and, although it has grown again, it has not reached its previous level. What appeared to be a serious pinch point now seems to have been pushed further out, but that does not give grounds for complacency. We all know that cold winters and, in particular, cold still days place immense demand on the system, and we need to take action to deal with that.

As much as £200 billion of new investment may be required in our electricity infrastructure. We have to rebuild it. It would have been much better for the country if more of that work had been done before 6 May, and it would have been much better had there not been a five-year moratorium on new nuclear and a delay of some years in new installations. I applaud the conversion of the last Administration, which began to put us back on track, but a number of years were lost.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

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[John Woodcock]

The Government talk a great deal about blank pages. Have they whitewashed their time in opposition, when one party was dead set against nuclear and the other wanted it to be a last resort? If they have converted, that is fine, but let us at least have a bit of candour about the process through which the Minister has got to where he is now.

[Charles Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman is new to the House and he might therefore be unaware of the extent to which we worked very constructively with the previous Secretary of State, the now noble Lord Hutton, and others to try to ensure that we took this agenda forward. As the hon. Gentleman has been a special adviser however, he will be aware that nuclear was taken off the agenda for five years. There was a Government White Paper that said, in effect, “We do not see a need for new nuclear in this country.” There were no qualifications to that statement; it was just stated that there was no requirement, full stop. For five years, that delayed the development of new nuclear.

I completely applaud the work of the previous Secretary of State, which has contributed to our country becoming one of the most exciting in the world for new nuclear development. The reality is that we were constructively involved in that process, but for five years nuclear was taken off the agenda.

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[Charles Hendry]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. In the months just before the election an enormous number of commitments were made, and one of the first things that we had to do as an incoming Government was to identify which of them were affordable. We went through that process extremely thoroughly—I think we have been robust about it—and Sheffield Forgemasters entirely understands the decisions that we have made. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills leads on supporting businesses in these areas and my Department feeds closely into that process. We want Sheffield Forgemasters, which is an outstanding example of a British manufacturing company, to have a key role to play in the future. However, on the basis that I have outlined, we did not believe it was appropriate for the loan to go ahead.

[John Woodcock]

I hope the Minister will accept that it is important to correct what the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) said if the Government are to retain credibility on this issue. Does the Minister accept that the issue of this loan was being negotiated for more than a year, including at the time when Lord Hutton was Business Secretary, and that it was very carefully considered by that Department over that period?