COP 29

Lord Wilson of Dinton Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right about the complexity of this whole area of policy, but he makes a powerful point. On Monday, we had an Oral Question from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on solar panels on roofs, when essentially the same question was asked by a number of noble Lords. I recognise the force of his argument. We are having cross-government discussions at the moment looking at building regulations. I hope that within a fairly short period of time we will have a positive outcome.

[Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)]

My Lords, I am perplexed by the slowness with which we pursue nuclear power. In 1980, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, announced to the House that we would build one PWR a year through the 1980s. I know because I drafted it. But it did not happen. Why is it so expensive and so slow?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Oh, my Lords. In 2007, the last Labour Government decided to go back to new nuclear—I was the Minister responsible from 2008 to 2010. We were starting to talk about Hinkley Point C with EDF and about developing a supply chain, and it was not until 2017 that the final investment decision was made. Hinkley Point C had many design changes because it was found that you could not simply take a model from France and put it in Britain without there having to be a lot of changes. However, there were a lot of positives, and it is being built—they are making substantial progress now. The second reactor has been much more efficiently built because they learned from the first reactor. Sizewell C, which will be 3.2 gigawatts, is moving to a final investment decision and will, in essence, be a replica of Hinkley Point C. So, although the noble Lord is right that there has been a lot of delay, I believe we can start to see greater progress. The small modular reactor and advanced modular reactor programmes have great potential for us in this country and for UK companies.