Magnox: Early Contract Terminations
Debate between Greg Clark and Rob Marris(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have a duty to consider the further risks to public money, which is why my accounting officer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I accepted on advice that, however painful it is—these are significant sums of money, as my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) said—we should prevent the sums of money from being even greater.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Given the cost problems with the NDA’s Magnox decommissioning contract, how can the Secretary of State have any confidence whatever in the cost figures for Hinkley Point C, which will itself need decommissioning, especially given the farce of the massive cost overruns and huge time delays in building the EDF sister reactors in Finland and Normandy, neither of which has yet opened and each of which is years late?
Greg Clark
This is about a procurement process that was mis-specified around decommissioning; it is not against the build costs of a future reactor. If Steve Holliday’s report includes wider lessons for the industry, we will be sure to take them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Clark and Rob Marris(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. This is supposed to be about an industrial strategy, rather than an electoral strategy, but there you go.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
In passing, may I say that it was the black country that was the birthplace of the industrial revolution, not Coalbrookdale? However, on transport spending, which is key to the industrial strategy for the west midlands, when does the Secretary of State expect to persuade his colleague the Secretary of State for Transport to spend as much per capita in the west midlands as in London?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman, who is an assiduous reader of these things, will see that, in the industrial strategy, we propose a commitment to upgrade infrastructure right across the country. I hope he will respond to that so that when we have the Budget later in the year, we will be in a position to make further such announcements.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Clark and Rob Marris
Greg Clark
I am aware of the study to which my hon. Friend refers. Up to 50% of the visitors to the west end are from overseas; they are tourists who are keen to spend their money here, and it is sensible to have arrangements in place that enable them to do so. She is a central London MP, so her residents will also benefit from such a move.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Will the Minister look at the matter again? Extending Sunday trading will have a deleterious effect on family life, as it already does, and will adversely affect many trade unionists who live in market towns and elsewhere, because the protections that are supposedly afforded to workers working on Sundays, or refusing to do so, are not succeeding very well? Will the Minister please look again and decide not to extend Sunday trading?
Greg Clark
There is a consultation out on this at the moment, but the proposal in the consultation is to allow local councils to make those decisions. Councils have a wide remit, social as well as economic, to look after the interests of their area. It could be that allowing some areas or particular stores such as garden centres to open on their busiest day—Sunday—is in the interests of everyone in the area.