Nuclear Fuel Manufacturing

Debate between Clive Betts and Richard Graham

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Betts. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) on securing this debate and colleagues from around the House on joining in what might be called a celebration of nuclear, to which I know the Minister will respond positively.

My hon. Friend made absolutely clear his views of the future of civil nuclear fuel manufacturing in the UK at Springfields in his constituency, and made the case as strongly as any of us could have expected him to do, with a crucial role for Sizewell C. In the remaining minutes before the wind-ups, I want to touch on that crucial aspect of this debate, but then widen it fairly swiftly into the role of nuclear in the United Kingdom, as hon. Members have tended to do.

The crucial thing is that the case for nuclear has to be restated again and again, because it has not always been clear that this Parliament has supported it. Whereas nuclear energy itself has continued to deliver consistently throughout the past 60 years, political views have ebbed considerably over that time.

Ultimately, although the 103,000 jobs and important supply chains are clearly vital to the economy, that is not the fundamental reason why we need nuclear, which is, in summary, the only proven low-carbon power that does not raise emissions, even in extreme weather. Over the past 60 years, it has consistently delivered more than 20% of the UK’s electricity needs. We know that those needs will rise so it is crucial that we plan for the future. If the criticism of democracy is sometimes that we only think in terms of five-year election cycles, it is vital that nuclear is the exception to that short-term thinking.

I listened with interest to the thoughtful comments made by the hon. Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) about the sector about which he knows so much—engineering, nuclear and skills—but the fact is that unfortunately his own party’s failure to do anything for the best part of a decade led to a loss of skills, the sale of British Energy and our dependence thereafter on foreign investment and skills. Much has changed since 2010, of course. Crucially, with the construction at Hinkley Point, we have the opportunity for the first time in a very long time to build up domestic skills, which can then continue at Sizewell C. I hope very much that the Minister will indicate that there will be further opportunities in the future to build additional nuclear power stations, thus taking on the skills from generation to generation, reducing the cost, increasing our skills, possibly enabling us to become exporters of skills again, and reducing our dependency on foreign skills.

The mood music at the moment is encouraging. None the less, I understand that the 18 GW proposal at Sizewell C has not yet reached financial agreement. Anything the Minister can say on that would be welcome. Meanwhile, we have all been slightly sidetracked by the huge opportunities in renewable energy, not least offshore wind and the sector I have spent a lot of time on—marine energy. I encourage all hon. Members who are supporters of nuclear to look at what is being achieved by Orbital Marine Power off Orkney in the north of Scotland. It is a remarkable generation of marine energy. In a sense, all that complements what we can do with nuclear, because it opens another great opportunity, which is to generate hydrogen at or very close to our nuclear power stations. I would welcome it if the Minister commented on what progress we might make on that over the next two or three years.

My constituency of Gloucester has been the nuclear operational headquarters for British Energy and now EDF Energy for a long time, operating all the existing nuclear power stations in Britain. Of course, we hope to take our nuclear skills in a new and different direction with a bid to become the hub, at Oldbury and Berkeley, for the development of nuclear fusion. We are very keen to see the operation at Barnwood play a major role in the development of Sizewell C. As colleagues have mentioned, the opportunities for skills, careers and well-paid jobs in a sector that is so vital to everything we do is enormous.

Can the Minister give us any update on Sizewell C? When will the Government consider the next project thereafter and how fast we can take forward the development of hydrogen at our nuclear power stations? I hope that my comments supplement and complement what colleagues from around Westminster Hall have said in support of a sector that is so vital to our future.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We now move on to the Front-Bench speeches. We have slightly more than the normal 10 minutes. We will allow two minutes for the mover of the debate to wind up at the end, so you have about 12 minutes. You do not have to take that time, of course. I call Alan Brown of the SNP.

Housing Benefit

Debate between Clive Betts and Richard Graham

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I am not sure how putting 1.6 million people in the dole queue is part of a grand strategy to get people back to work. At some point, somebody will add those bits of the grand strategy up and explain how they connect together.

On the lack of joined-up thinking, we have been taking evidence in the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government about the impact of the Government’s policy of abolishing the regional spatial strategies. Some people have told us that that is a good thing to do, others have been more critical of the inherent aim of Government policy, and some have said that eventually we will get policies in the localism Bill that explain the Government’s long-term strategy. However, almost every witness has said that in the meantime there is a complete vacuum in housing planning policy. The National Housing Federation has commissioned detailed research and it has been estimated that 160,000 planning permissions that would have been given under the previous planning regime have not now been given. That means that fewer houses will be built when eventually the housing market returns.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned joined-up thinking. Does he feel it is fair that so many families who are not working and who are not disabled receive more in benefits than families who are working and are on the average national salary or less? What would he say to my constituents about the joined-up thinking of the past 13 years that allowed that situation to continue unchanged for so long?

[Mr Betts]

As Labour Members have clearly said, those on the Government Benches are involved in a complete misthinking about the fact that not everyone on housing benefit is unemployed; many people on housing benefit are on low wages and they will be affected by these changes too. There is a real issue to address about disincentives to work and tapers in the housing benefit system. I would appreciate those tapers being flatter than they have been or are now, but we all have to recognise that if the steepness of housing benefit tapers, or of any other benefit tapers, is reduced, the cost is increased. That is a problem and I look forward to seeing how the Secretary of State will solve it when he introduces his universal credit.

I have alluded to the impact that these changes will have in Sheffield. It is not the cap that affects cities such as Sheffield; it is the 30th percentile change that affects us. That is the fundamental problem and it will cost the average family on housing benefit in Yorkshire and Humber about £7 a week. The total cost of the change for the average family in Sheffield will be more than £30 a month, and it will lead to dispersal. There are considerable differences in the rates that apply in different parts of Sheffield, and not only the unemployed, but those on low wages who are renting in the private sector will be dispersed from richer parts of the city, in the constituency of Sheffield, Hallam, to other parts of the city. I did not use the word “cleanse” or “clear”, because “disperse” is an accurate and proper word to use when describing what will happen. The city will become more segregated and more divided. The situation will get worse, because local housing allowances are linked to the consumer prices index but rents rise at a higher rate. Therefore, over time, people will be dispersed from progressively more parts of the city. That is what the impact will be on cities such as Sheffield—that is the reality.

At the same time, housing departments, such as Sheffield city council’s, will face pressure because unemployment will create more housing problems and more homelessness. The budgets of these departments will have been cut, yet they will have to deal with advising or re-housing people in desperate circumstances. What we have not had a clear answer to is whether people who have to move home because they cannot pay their rent as housing benefit no longer covers it will be considered intentionally homeless. That is a fundamental point, so can we have an answer on it please? Can we also have an answer on whether the Government really are going to change the homeless legislation as Lord Freud indicated in order to see their way out of this problem without local authorities having to have the responsibility of housing people? Those are fundamental issues.

Why is it necessary to punish the couple in their 50s who lose their jobs, whose family have left home and who are living in a three-bedroom council house? Why is their home at risk because they have lost their jobs and housing benefit will not cover their rent as they are deemed to be under-occupying? This is simply not fair. It is a vicious and nasty policy that is aimed at hard-working people who happen to be unemployed and who then need to be re-housed too. These benefit reductions are not part of any grand policy on welfare reform and they are certainly not part of any clear housing strategy. They are part of an unfair agenda driven by the Chancellor, who has simply cut the incomes of some of the poorest people in our communities.