Nuclear: Small Modular Reactors

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his congratulations. What better way to spend my birthday than answering his Question? I understand his frustration. Of course, we want to get this SMR programme over the line. Great British Nuclear is coming to the end of its evaluation process. I expect an announcement to be made within the next few weeks. I believe we have a great opportunity in this country to develop small modular reactors and a UK supply chain and to get us towards net zero, because of the essential contribution that nuclear power will play in the baseload we require.

[Lord Sharma (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government hope to quadruple the amount of nuclear capacity by 2050—the same target that the Conservative Government had—and it is very welcome in terms of baseload. Can the Minister give us some indication of what percentage of that increase in capacity is going to come from SMRs and AMRs as opposed to big nuclear, particularly given how long it takes for decisions to be enacted?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is referring to the road map issued by the last Government. He will know that unfortunately it was not backed up by any concrete plan or resource, so we are having to pick up the pieces. I cannot yet give him the answer on the mix between SMR and major-gigawatt plants. We are clearly alongside the SMR programme. We are moving rapidly towards final investment decision on Sizewell C, which is 3.2 gigawatts. That follows Hinkley Point C, where EDF says the first unit will open between 2029 and 2031. Over the next few months we will work very hard to look at the potential of SMRs, gigawatts and the advanced modular reactors and give industry a sense of where we are going in order to give it the security and certainty it needs to develop the supply chain we want to see.