Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 53B, which seeks to relieve newly commissioned nuclear power stations of the burdens of the regulations on ionising radiation. These regulations have accumulated over time and become a byzantine legal code. They require justifications for a wide variety of daily practices involved in the handling of radioactive materials. Specialist firms exist to enable their clients to identify the specific compliance requirements of their organisation, to enable them to complete legal compliance audits and to develop bespoke legal registers.

The regulations are the products of successive enactments in the UK that date from the inception of the nuclear industry. They have also arisen out of the directives of the European Commission, and Euratom has been responsible for creating many of them. I observe that we are no longer a member of that organisation; had we remained a member, we would doubtless be involved in an endeavour to rationalise and alleviate the regulations.

There are two reasons why the burden of justification should not fall on newly commissioned nuclear power stations. First, their designs and operating procedures have already been scrutinised in detail by the generic design assessments conducted by the Office for Nuclear Regulation, which renders further justifications unnecessary. The second reason concerns the stringent culture of safety that nowadays characterises our nuclear industry. Anyone who has visited a nuclear power station will testify to it. The Office for Nuclear Regulation is the UK’s nuclear inspectorate. Its job is to ensure that these standards are maintained, and it can be relied on to continue to do just that.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. Rolls-Royce was ready to move forward with SMRs some five years ago but, under several Governments, no decision was made. More inquiries were done on this, that and the other. The net result is that Rolls-Royce goes to do it on the ground on the continent, and gets permission within a few months. Here we are vacillating again. This important amendment is really needed, and I very much hope that His Majesty’s Government will take it on board.