Small Modular Reactors

Debate between Drew Hendry and Trudy Harrison

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry]

I understand that. The one thing I was agreeing with is that there must be more solutions on offer. There must be a mix, but I respectfully disagree about nuclear. I was going to highlight the hon. Gentleman’s support for renewable projects, which a couple of people have mentioned.

I will not use my time to go through every Member’s speech, but the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) made a powerful case. He incidentally made the Minister something of a deity and said that he was doing the Lord’s work. I am not sure which Lord, but we will come back to that.

The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) talked about the SMR competition. A warning about competitions from the UK Government can be found in Peterhead, where the carbon capture and storage competition was launched, and £100 million was spent before the £1 billion—[Interruption.] The Minister is trying to wave me away from that bit. The people of Peterhead will not forget the UK Government’s betrayal and the cancellation of that carbon capture project, which could have given the UK a five-year lead on carbon capture and storage. That is all gone.

[Trudy Harrison]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Drew Hendry]

I will not give way, because the other Front Benchers have to get in and I have to restrict my comments.

The first SMR is not due for 10 years. The costs are uncertain. There will probably be limited access to sites, planning delays and rising costs. The UK Government have pursued costly, dangerous nuclear energy over cheap renewables out of misplaced ideology. We have heard about the delays at Wylfa and the collapse of Woodside. That is the pursuit of ideology over pragmatism, and it does not work. The Government are letting people down.

The UK Government are already spending vast amounts on nuclear schemes about which there are safety concerns. They were about to lend £15 billion to Hitachi in Wales for Wylfa before the project collapsed because even that was not enough money. At Hinkley Point C, there is a £30 billion cost to the public sector. The Minister will argue that that is not the case, but the strike price amounts to what the public will be paying over that period to cover the cost of delays, complications, overspends and up-front costs. That is from the National Audit Office, not from me.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Drew Hendry and Trudy Harrison

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 31st October 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Drew Hendry]

I am surprised that you do not have an idea of what you might require as part of the industry—that you might not have an idea of how long you might need as a run-in time to adjust to new regulations.

Angela Hepworth: I think it is more a question of understanding the timeline from the Government and the ONR that they need to have these arrangements in place. Speaking from an industry perspective, we welcome certainty and stability. An early signal that there would be a period of continuity after the Euratom exit date where the arrangements for trade would continue to apply would be very reassuring.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

Q To declare my interest, my husband and various other family members work at Sellafield in my constituency of Copeland. I have heard loud and clear that there is a need for a critical path for us all to have sight of, to understand how this process is running, and also the transition period. I think it would be helpful to understand what outcomes we would need from that transition period from other countries outwith Europe, but also for us to understand how it is necessary for other countries to have this in place. How do other countries rely upon the UK to continue with their business in the nuclear industry?

Angela Hepworth: If we are thinking about countries outside the EU, there are a number of countries where it is either illegal or a policy requirement that they have a nuclear co-operation agreement in place if they are going to export nuclear material. The countries that the UK Government have rightly prioritised for negotiating agreements are the US, Canada, Japan and Australia. In each case the UK Government will need to negotiate a nuclear co-operation agreement with that country to enable the trade.

Why does it matter? For example, our Sizewell B power station relies on Westinghouse technology, so we rely on our links with the US in order to be able to operate and maintain that power station. If we wanted to import a part from America, or to draw on expertise and services from America for that power station, there has to be a nuclear co-operation agreement in place between the UK and the US in order to do that. As we understand it, the US will not agree a nuclear co-operation agreement unless the UK has a safeguards regime in place, which is one reason we see the Nuclear Safeguards Bill as a key priority, to put that in place. Each of those countries will have its own internal processes in order to agree nuclear co-operation agreements.

As I understand it, for example, in the US it will have to be agreed by the President and it will have to go through Congress. We have been telling Government we would like to see, as an industry, a timeline that sets out for our benefit the steps that need to be taken in order to put a safeguards regime in place, to get it approved by the IAEA, to conclude the negotiations with third countries, but also the ratification processes for those countries, in order to understand the end-to-end process and how those various components interact, so that we can have the safeguards regime in place and also the nuclear co-operation agreements with those third countries. Then, as I said, we need a future agreement with Euratom: there needs to be an agreement in place, negotiated between the UK and Euratom, which explains the framework for nuclear trade going forward once we have left Euratom.