Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it will probably not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to know that I oppose his amendment. It is well known in your Lordships’ House that the Green Party opposes new nuclear power plants. Proponents of new nuclear power should be careful what they wish for and consider the whole issue of public consent and concern.

I commend the noble Lord on managing to get this amendment considered at an extremely timely moment, given that this week the Government are seeking to go ahead with Sizewell C. As the Financial Times notes, it is

“the costliest nuclear reactor in the world”

and will see the UK taxpayer bearing huge costs and risk, with government loans of £3.8 billion and a £36 billion loan from the National Wealth Fund.

I declare an interest in that I know many of the people who have opposed the Sizewell C project and, I have no doubt, will continue to do so. There are many reasons why they oppose it. Cost is the obvious one, but there are also the local environmental impacts and concerns about future security, sea level rise and water use—a whole list of things. Safety is a big issue that people have continuing concerns about with nuclear power; it is no wonder when you consider the list from Chernobyl to Fukushima to the continuing concerns regularly highlighted by the International Energy Agency about Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. The public are very much concerned about trust and safety.

Many in your Lordships’ House are undoubtedly familiar with the phrase “policing with consent”. When we were discussing physician associates, I spoke about regulating with consent. What has happened since with the Leng review and the many concerns expressed showed that there was a problem when the previous Government went ahead without real consent and clear understanding within the health sector. If you are looking at nuclear power, those who propone it would want to see that there is construction with consent and reassurance of security. Taking away regulatory justification is not going to play very well.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with interest to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and I can assure her that, having heard last week from both the chairman and the chief executive of the Office for Nuclear Regulation, who appeared before the Industry and Regulators Committee on which I serve, I was very satisfied that their regulatory process and policy would more than satisfy the consumers and residents of the area of Suffolk near the Sizewell nuclear power station.

The secret of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is in its title:

“Removal of duplicative regulatory justification decisions”.


We do not need duplicative regulatory justification decisions if, in the singular, they protect the safety of the public to a sufficient degree. I was very satisfied by the answers to questions on safety that we received in our committee last week from the senior management of the ONR. I strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.