Annual Energy Statement
Debate between Chris Huhne and Phil Woolas
Chris Huhne
As my hon. Friend says, the technology has been held out as having enormous promise for many years. It would be absolutely marvellous, as I think everybody can agree, if we were able to move to new nuclear fusion, which has all sorts of fantastic advantages. I will await with interest the briefing from my excellent chief scientist on the practicalities of incorporating it within a 2050 pathways review.
Mr Phil Woolas (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The nuclear industry is worth an estimated £30 billion of investment over the next 10 years in the north-west of England alone. At the time of the announcement on Sheffield Forgemasters, that was part of a much wider strategy mainly based in the north-west, which included public money being spent on research, not least in the area that the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) mentioned—for example, at the Dalton nuclear institute and the advanced manufacturing research centre. That is public money for investment. Is that money secure, or does the Secretary of State see it as a subsidy to the nuclear industry?
Chris Huhne
The hon. Gentleman really does not get it yet, and I am afraid that he shares that with a lot of his colleagues on the Labour Benches. The reality is that the fiscal constraints under which this Government are now labouring—I use that word advisedly—are such that we are having to look with extraordinary forensic acuteness at spending right across the board. The days when he and his colleagues were able to sign blank cheques and leave them like confetti across the country are over. If he has not yet woken up to that fact, he had better do so pretty soon, because the electorate will not take him seriously until he does.