Civil Nuclear Road Map

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I welcome the noble Lord’s comments. We recognise the substantial contributions that many communities in Wales have made over the years towards our nuclear policy in the UK and all the energy that we have received. Part of the consultation is a check on the siting of new nuclear plants, and community support, the existence of existing grid connections and so on will play important roles in future siting policies. The plants that he mentions score very well in that regard.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my nuclear interests as outlined in the register. I wholeheartedly welcome this report—and its earlier cousin, Towards Fusion Energy—particularly its emphasis on the cross-Whitehall endeavour to build the skilled workforce that the industry needs, which we all know will be a challenge. But back to Wales. Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Jones said, can my noble friend the Minister reassure me that, in deciding sites for a further large-scale and small modular reactor, sufficient weight will be given to the levelling-up needs of north-west Wales, where the creation of a nuclear cluster, including gigawatt generation at Wylfa and both SMR and medical radioisotope production at Trawsfynydd, would indeed be transformative?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I know from many conversations that I have had with my noble friend her absolute commitment to pursuing the cause of Wales and the contribution that it can make to our nuclear renaissance. I give her the absolute reassurance, building on the reply that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Jones, that the communities she has mentioned are very well placed to benefit from the new nuclear policies that we have announced. On her other point, my noble friend is correct to say that we need to build a skilled nuclear workforce to ensure that we have the people we need to power this future nuclear renaissance.