Energy Security Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Clive Betts
Main Page: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)Department Debates - View all Clive Betts's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Energy Security
Clive Betts Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about rooftop solar; I have had it on my own house for the past 11 years, and once it is there, it just carries on producing power. We need to expand that, both domestically and on factory roofs. I will be looking at things like permitted development rights, which enable those panels to go up on top of roofs. There are currently limits to the size of the panels that can be put in place, and I think they are a fruitful source of additional power.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State to his place. According to what he has said, Sheffield must be getting some things right: we have been doing energy from waste for over 30 years, since I was council leader, and ITM Power, the leading green hydrogen company, is in my constituency.
Regarding nuclear, is it not important that we ensure a UK supply chain, which has not always happened? Rolls-Royce and SMRs are therefore really important, working with Sheffield Forgemasters, but Madhvani International is also prepared to put billions of pounds of development capital into developing Hitachi-based SMRs—which are already regulated in North America—working with Forgemasters and other Sheffield companies. I am pleased that the Secretary of State will meet me tomorrow to discuss the proposal in more detail, but in principle, I hope that he welcomes it.
Grant Shapps
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s foresightedness in all the schemes that he mentioned. It is a shame that the last Government to invest in nuclear power was Margaret Thatcher’s Government, all the way back in the 1980s; yesterday brought that long drought to an end. As the energy Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness, has reminded me, we have already provided £210 million to Rolls-Royce for the small modular reactor programme. I wish both Sheffield and the rest of the country well in attracting some of this new technology, and the supply chain that goes with it, to their constituencies.