Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Chris Green Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). It was interesting to hear the contrast between the position of the Liberal Democrats a few years ago and their position now, but we have to respect those views, which do change with time.

Part of the context of this debate is the concern over energy security, which is so important. Obviously, there have been spikes in gas demand and gas prices, but we need only look at the situation in Texas and California a little while ago to see how energy supplies can be affected, which is why we in the United Kingdom need to ensure that we have energy security. As with other European countries, we ought not to be as dependent on energy supplies from countries that are not as friendly as they might be to our national interests. We need only look at random events across the globe, such as the one that happened in the Suez canal, to see how supply chains can be so dramatically affected. We therefore need that secure energy supply, and nuclear is a key part of that for the United Kingdom.

We also need firm energy, or that baseload energy. We hear a great deal of discussion about solar panels and wind turbines, whether at sea or on land, but those provide intermittent energy. We cannot rely on that energy, although it does have an important contribution to make; that is why nuclear energy ought to form a key part of our reliable energy production.

There is a great deal of interest in this area in the north-west of England. Many of our skills are centred there, whether it be Sellafield, Warrington or Heysham, and that huge wealth of talent needs to be maintained. We also have the important Springfields site near Preston, which produces our nuclear fuels. We need to ensure that the site is secured. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that, when future contracts are given for nuclear power stations, the future viability of the Springfields site in the short, medium and long term is secured within the context of those contracts. Springfields does a huge amount of good for the local economy. It is also a wonderful source of apprenticeships. These are often very high-skilled and very well-paid jobs that we ought to be promoting and certainly protecting.

Hinkley Point C is at an advanced stage of construction. We need to look at the skills being developed at that site, and ensure that they are retained within the nuclear sector, so we need to be looking at when Sizewell C will be funded and brought online.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

That is exactly the point that Vulcain Engineering in Stroud has been explaining to me. We have a fusion bid in at the moment, which is an amazing opportunity, but the company is very clear that if we do not have another nuclear project in play we will lose so many of those jobs and skills—not only from the south-west, but from the whole UK. They will go abroad and will not come back.

[Chris Green]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We need to secure those jobs and we need, as early as possible, to give that reassurance to engineers and others and say to them, “Your future is in the nuclear industry.” In that way, people can be focused on sticking with the industry and looking for that next job. It is about building that fleet of nuclear power stations. Whether it is Sizewell or further power stations down the line—there are already eight sites that have been identified for future nuclear—we need to give workers the reassurance that their skills are needed within the sector.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend rightly referred to the phrase “a fleet of nuclear power stations”. Of course, in that context, Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C would be the aircraft carriers, as would anything in the future in Wylfa, but there are also opportunities for the smaller frigates. That is where the small modular reactors being proposed by Rolls-Royce could come as an extremely useful addition to those aircraft carriers. Does he agree?

[Chris Green]

That is such an important point. I agree entirely that we already have the larger-scale nuclear reactors and the established technology. It is so important that we look at SMRs and AMRs, and at the leadership that can be provided in a consortium by Rolls-Royce. If we get in early and develop that technology in the United Kingdom, we can export it around the world and create more wealth in the United Kingdom from this incredibly important source of energy and the power stations.

[Bob Stewart]

As I listen to discussions on the expansion of nuclear capability in this country, it slightly worries me that we have not talked about the security of those assets. My worry is that they could be interfered with by some foreign power in a cyber-attack. That must be part of all the planning for these places.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Green]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The physical security is one aspect, but the cyber-security, including firewalls and other protections, is immensely important to the sector. This energy provision is a key strategic interest and we cannot allow anything to interfere with it, but I am sure that the Minister and the experts in the sector are well aware of those threats.

[Alan Brown]

On security, I presume that the hon. Gentleman shares my concerns about China General Nuclear being involved at Hinkley and still being in the mix for Sizewell C.

[Chris Green]

I am concerned about the strategic national interest, but I think that most people at home would need to have reassurance on this: the security risk of the technical aspects, to which people might be more sensitive, is different from the financial aspects, which is what the Chinese involvement is at the moment. Those are two very different things. However, I do acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.

[Mark Jenkinson]

On security, the Office for Nuclear Regulation is considered to be one of the best nuclear regulators in the world. I certainly have faith in its being able to do its job, but is not the reason why state-backed companies are involved in nuclear construction that they have the money to put in up front? Is not this legislation exactly what we need to remove the need for them to be involved?

[Chris Green]

I agree entirely that there are huge challenges for the private sector to come up with the cash for the nuclear sector, because of providing the money up front; it takes such a long time to build a power station before energy or electricity can be produced, and people can get returns for their money. That is why the regulated asset-based model is key. It has been used in other areas successfully, so it is now seen as a reliable way of financing large projects.

Now is the time to make progress in this area. We have the skills base, the national need and the national security questions. All these things come together at the same time to make a compelling argument, so I am pleased that the Government are bringing this legislation forward, whether it is for the larger-scale nuclear reactors or the smaller-scale nuclear reactors. Let me finally say to my hon. Friend the Minister—I know that he has an interest in this—that, in the slightly longer term, if we do develop the fusion reactors, perhaps this funding model could be used there.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green). I speak wearing my hat as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the environment, and I want to touch on some of the environmental issues addressed by some Opposition Members.

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima: the names of the world’s nuclear accidents haunt people around the planet to this day. Fears of lethal invisible radiation killing thousands of people and laying waste swathes of the planet—these are very audible concerns. But then there are the facts. No one died from Three Mile Island, and studies afterwards showed that there was no measurable increase in cancer rates. One person died from Fukushima. Again, post-accident studies showed no measurable impact on cancer rates.

Then there is Chernobyl. I have been to Chernobyl—to Chernobyl village itself. I went with the United Nations, which spent a long time studying the medical impact of the world’s worst nuclear accident for 15 years after it happened. There I saw the alarming sight of happy villagers who had refused to leave after the accident and were taking the opportunity to restore the beautiful Chernobyl village church; they took a delight in showing me around it. I met a mother in Chernobyl village who had conceived and given birth to a totally healthy baby. Yes, 41 rescuers died of acute radiation sickness in the immediate aftermath of the accident, and there was a measurable increase in childhood thyroid cancer, which is, luckily, vanishingly rare, but otherwise the UN scientists found no measurable negative medical effects from the nuclear accident itself and concluded they had been vastly exaggerated.

We have now had nuclear power around the world for nigh on 70 years, and it has proven to be just about the safest and greenest form of energy. Safety is measured in the industry in terms of deaths per terawatt-hour of energy production, taking all direct and indirect deaths into account, including through the supply chain. For coal, it is 24.6 deaths per terawatt hour; for oil, 18.4; for biomass, 4.6; and for gas, 2.8. For nuclear, it is 0.07. Yes, that is a bit higher than wind, solar and hydropower, although in roughly the same ballpark, but several orders of magnitude lower than other forms of power, and in terms of CO₂ emissions, nuclear produces less than hydropower. It is about the cleanest and safest form of energy in the world, and it is, as we have heard today, massively scalable.

So why have we not embraced it? I will tell you why:

“Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media.”

Those are not my words but those of James Lovelock, one of the most eminent environmental scientists, who founded the whole Gaia thesis. As a former environment editor of The Observer and The Times, and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the environment, I believe that the environment movement has been one of the most important and positive movements of the last half century. The fact that we are all environmentalists now—including the Queen, I note—proves the positive impact the movement has had. However, the environment movement made a major strategic error by campaigning so hard against nuclear power. Increasingly, many environmentalists agree. Even as Fukushima was still smoking, George Monbiot, the environmental leader, had a damascene conversion and started making the moral case for nuclear power.

If we believe that climate change is the biggest threat to the planet, we have to use every tool in the toolbox to combat it. We have a moral obligation not to campaign against the one technology that can probably help more than almost any other to get to net zero.

[Chris Green]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that with nuclear we have existing established technologies that can be used and rolled out, even though the timescale in the Bill is reasonably long, but other technologies that we would desire to come down the line in the future are not established and currently cannot work at the scale we need?

[Anthony Browne]

I absolutely agree. As I said, we have had nuclear for 70 years and we know that it works. The point I was about to come to, which my hon. Friend touched on earlier, is that the French have 70% of electricity produced by nuclear and they have a very well-established industry. It is not politically controversial at all. They have made it work and made it cost-effective. That is one of the reasons why France has far lower carbon dioxide emissions that we do in the UK. We should change to other technologies. We heard mention of tidal power earlier—yes, absolutely. However, there have been many projects to try to make tidal power work over the past few decades and none of them has yet quite succeeded, although we should still carry on trying.

As I have said many times in this House, the UK has had a really good track record in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, roughly halving them. Our per-capita emissions are now lower than those of many other countries, including green icons such as Denmark and Norway, but France has had lower emissions than us for decades because of nuclear power. I used to live in Belgium and got my electricity bills from France, and they used to have to say where the electricity came from: “nonante-neuf pour cent nucléaire”, which is—in Belgian French, not French French—“99% nuclear power”. That was always a delight for me. Driving around France, nuclear power stations are all over the place. It is not a political issue; people are very comfortable with it.

The environment movement has been very successful in demonising nuclear power beyond any scientific justification. That in part is why UK Governments have been so nervous, and it has meant as a country we have gone from being a world leader in nuclear power and one of the first to introduce it to being a straggler with a semi-clapped-out sector, as we have heard, with all these power plants going out and without much expertise, so that we end up depending on foreign companies and foreign Governments to be able to do anything. We have to build up our capacity again as a country. As we move away from nuclear fuels, we need a strong nuclear sector more than ever.