Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T3. Will the Secretary of State commend the new nuclear fusion site at West Burton, just two miles from the town of Gainsborough, which, potentially, will unleash unlimited green energy as well as hundreds of millions of pounds of investment and thousands of jobs? Will she confirm that, when it comes to science and innovation, this country is not broken, but is leading the world?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)]

First, may I affirm the importance of the project that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about? The Government are backing the future of nuclear fusion across the country, and this site in particular has a huge contribution to make. Construction will be on its way by the end of the decade, with research and development tests before that. At the heart of it, we will be backing the use of AI to further our clean energy goals in fusion and beyond.