Energy Efficiency

Debate between David Morris and Barry Gardiner

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

A lot has been said about renewables, about where we are going as a country with our energy policy and about how we are going to keep the lights on in 10 years’ time. In my Morecambe and Lunesdale constituency, a paradox occurs. We have two nuclear power stations; one is due to be decommissioned very shortly; and we have a plethora of wind farm applications going through the Lune valley and all the way through the M6 corridor into the Cambrian region.

The nuclear power industry, it has to be said, gets a bad press. What is needed is education. I do not think anyone here could argue that a pellet the size of a 10p piece could power a town for, say, a month; yet we are trying to figure out how to keep the lights on in 10 years’ time—and we all know that they are going to go out if we do not invest in nuclear power.

I really believe in nuclear power; I am 100% for it. When I was standing for election in Morecambe and Lunesdale, I said that as long as I am the Member of Parliament for the constituency there will be nuclear power there. It is the largest employer in my constituency, but it also accounts for 10% of the national grid.

We are due to have a new power station built in Heysham, if everything goes according to plan, and it should be noted that upgrades and new nuclear power stations are planned all through my region and up into Cumbria. Heysham is one of perhaps only two urban areas in the country that could possibly accept having a nuclear power station built in it.

Although we rightly want to promote wind power, I cannot understand why wind power has to be located in areas of outstanding natural beauty.

[Barry Gardiner]

Because they are windy.

[David Morris]

Exactly. It is because of the wind, but the wind comes in from the sea, so why do we not put battalions of wind farms out in the sea? That is common sense. We do not have to put them all across the hills, valleys and mountains of this great country; we can put them out at sea instead, where they will generate more energy. There is evidence to suggest that turbines erected out at sea are more efficient than those erected on land in other ways too, because, as has been said, it can take quite some time to secure planning permission for the construction of both nuclear and wind sources of energy on land. This is a very contentious subject.

We have to figure out how we are going to power this country in future. Yes, the coal mines did get closed down in the ’80s, but in the town I am originally from, Leigh, the pits were closed down naturally, purely and simply because they had been over-mined. I still hear stories in my home town that Thatcher closed down the pits, however. She did not. If we all remember rightly, we will recall that there was a political argument going on between the unions and the Government of the day.

Members need to acknowledge that we are now in 2010, and in 10 years’ time the lights will go out unless we start building nuclear power stations and battalions of wind farms out at sea.