Housing: Leasehold Properties

Debate between Viscount Hanworth and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Monday 17th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

It is a clear issue and I will give the Minister instances of its occurrence.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Is the Minister aware that, notwithstanding the appalling situation of housing in England, there is one part of the United Kingdom where it is even worse? The First Minister of Scotland refuses to visit the Homeless Project Scotland in Glasgow, students are sleeping in hotels and on the floor, and the housing policy in Scotland is engineered by two Ministers who are eccentric members of the Scottish Green Party. Is that not a ridiculous thing? This minority party is driving the policy in Scotland and causing so much hardship.

Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Debate between Viscount Hanworth and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

The proponents of this amendment are trenchantly opposed to nuclear power. They are proposing as a condition for allowing a company to construct a new nuclear plant that a facility for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste should be available. Presumably they imagine they are proposing a condition that cannot be met. The proposers should be aware, albeit that they may have missed the point, that work is already under way to establish a geological facility for such waste. Three locations have been proposed, and there have been favourable responses from the people in the areas concerned. This was announced in a symposium that was held in November in Methodist Central Hall, a stone’s throw away from Parliament by Nuclear Waste Services, which is a branch of the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. In fact, the Liberal Democrats have strongly opposed the establishment of a geological disposal facility. They have recently organised a petition of local residents to oppose a tentative proposal that such a facility might be created on the south coast under Romney Marshes.

Just a month ago, the Liberal Democrats ago voiced the old trope that nuclear waste is highly radioactive and highly hazardous and that the hazards will endure for millennia. They cannot have it both ways. Nuclear radiation is subject to a geometric or exponential process of decay. The more intense the radiation, the shorter lived it will be. On the other hand, a substance that has a half-life of thousands of years is only weakly radioactive. The methods that have been devised for the storage of nuclear waste can accommodate all these circumstances in a manner that can render the waste harmless. We have had various figures quoted for the cost of this enterprise, but the proponents of the amendment are proposing these figures as if they are a cost to be borne immediately. In fact, that cost will be distributed over a long period. If you take that into account, a very different conclusion arises.

This is an ill-conceived amendment and should be dismissed without further ado. We should not allow the legislative process to be entrammelled by such groundless objections and impediments.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

I am not sure why my noble friend is so surprised that the Liberal Democrats have moved this amendment. They are always looking in two directions, and this is absolutely typical of them. My noble friend has been in the House of Lords long enough, and he ought to have got used to it by now.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

Yes, indeed. In 2010, the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government proposed that 10 new nuclear plants should be built. Of course, they have totally changed their opinion.