Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Fifteenth sitting)

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

The Minister is slightly unwisely saying that this is the most exciting part of the Bill. We know that the provisions are exactly bang in the middle of the Minister’s brief as part of the team at DESNZ, as we now call the Department—although I understand that there are instructions not to call it DESNZ. Quite how we pronounce it, I am unsure; for the sake of the Minister, I will undertake not to sneak DESNZ into Hansard.

The provisions relate to the establishment of Great British Nuclear. As a suite of new clauses, they are unexceptionable and the right thing to do in terms of getting Great British Nuclear off the ground—although, in a sense, Great British Nuclear is already off the ground, as it was launched in March. The provisions therefore underpin the activities of an existing body, rather than a created one. It might be useful to briefly consider what GBN is tasked to do in the first instance.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has hit on an important point. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nuclear energy, one of my concerns is the fact that Great British Nuclear is going to be in DESNZ at all. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Cabinet Office might be a more suitable Department, given that the two biggest issues in the delivery of new nuclear are planning and people, neither of which are under DESNZ’s ministerial purview?

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point; were I to cede to it entirely it would lead to great distress on the part of the Minister. Nevertheless, she makes the valid point that the exact placing of Great British Nuclear is one for further consideration. For now, it is starting off in DESNZ.

Let me read again from the factsheet that was given to me when the new clauses were being mooted. Under the heading “What will GBN do?” it says:

“GBN is tasked with facilitating delivery of government’s nuclear programme. Its focus will be to de-risk new nuclear development by co-funding projects at the critical early development stage and acting as an expert adviser throughout the process.

Having launched within the auspices of the current legal framework in March 2023, the first priority for GBN is to lead a competitive process to select the best Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technologies for investment. This commenced in April 2023, with market engagement as the first phase. The second phase—the down-selection process—will be launched in the summer, with an aim to assess and select the leading technologies by autumn. GBN will deploy government funding to support the development of these selected technologies.”

That sounds like a good idea but, as the Minister will be aware, a number of companies are actively engaged in small modular nuclear technology, and some of them are far more advanced than others and only one of them is fully British. Not only are they at various stages of advancement in their processes, but they are pursuing processes in small modular nuclear development that are very different in their size and application.

At one end, we have Rolls-Royce’s proposals for a not very small, not very modular reactor at about 440 MW —that is, about the size of a medium to large gas-fired power station. Then we go down through the sizes of a number of other companies engaged in the process, and not just through sizes but from pressurised water through to molten salt through to thorium. Then, at what we could say is the bottom end, and with probably an entirely different function, there are the proposals by Last Energy. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North has had considerable discussion with that company. Last Energy has made quite a lot of advancement at an early stage in procuring potential contracts for its plants, should they be built. It considers that its proposals do not need to go through the generic consenting process because they are small versions of existing pressurised water arrangements, so they could get going quickly and early. Indeed, in the United States, Last Energy has already constructed a number of the modular reactors that will go forward. Most significantly, it says it does not require any Government assistance or funding for its purposes.

As far as I can see, though, all those different companies and technologies of different sizes and applications are being placed, through Great British Nuclear, into a competition to find the best technology. The best technology will win, and the winner will then have Government funding to support the development of the selected technologies. I wonder whether, in the context of some of those companies saying that their technology does not need to be selected for Government funding—they can actually go ahead and do it—the development of the competition in that way might be seen as a brake on the development of small modular nuclear in the UK, rather than an assistance.

We must be careful with the competitive process. If it puts the stoppers on development in certain places because the competition has not yet been realised, the people developing the proposals may well say to themselves, “Actually, this is not a very fast process after all.” They are ready to go and can get themselves developing pretty quickly, but meanwhile they have to jump through the hoops of a competitive process that they do not want to enter, and they may or may not come out as the winner in the end.

I am sure the Minister has a good answer to my concerns. If I were very unworthy, I might suggest that the competition was launched to, among other things, ensure that the Rolls-Royce proposals get a good looking at, bearing in mind that they are not as well advanced as some other small modular nuclear developers’ proposals, and putting them all on the same level means that Rolls-Royce gets to the starting point in a better order than it might have done otherwise. However, I am sure that is a very unworthy thing to say and that that is far from the Minister’s mind.

I would like to know whether the competition will include all technologies or exclude some of them. Or will it be a mixed bag of arrangements whereby those that are able to make progress at an earlier stage than the competition suggests are basically left alone, and the competition does not impede that progress? That does not particularly affect the way GBN is set up as far as the new clauses are concerned. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North said, we have a question about the final placement of GBN, but I do not have any objections or particular concerns about the way it is set up. I have more concerns about what it is going to do in the first instance, and whether that will push small modular nuclear forward or not, depending on how the arrangements are carried out.