Energy Security: Hinkley Point

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has been trying to get in on several Questions for several days.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, is not one of the problems that, in negotiating with EDF on the two nuclear power stations at Hinkley and Sizewell in Suffolk—I declare my interest in the latter—the Government were outfoxed by EDF? EDF has shown an astonishingly ruthless determination to get exactly what it wants, lacking, in some cases, in integrity. To give one example, in Suffolk, in order to persuade people that there was support for its local transport plans, EDF summoned a meeting at which £20 notes were handed out and the people were filmed.