New Nuclear Power Stations

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I am very grateful to have this chance to talk about an issue that of course affects my constituency enormously, as you know Mr Streeter.

The future of nuclear power is vital to my constituency and to the whole of the United Kingdom. That is why I am very grateful to have the chance to debate the issue today and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister is here to respond to the debate.

It is no secret that we are running out of capacity to generate electricity. Existing nuclear stations are growing old and they must be replaced within the next seven years or—to be blunt—the lights will start going out. We cannot afford any more delays and I am afraid that, as a nation, we must take decisive action now.

The previous time I raised these matters in Westminster Hall, which was nine months ago, there was a different Government and many attitudes were different from those that exist now. Today I hope that I am preaching to the converted about the necessities and advantages of nuclear power.

In Bridgwater, nuclear power has provided reliable electricity to the grid since 1970 through the four reactors of the A and B stations, two of which, at the A station, have now been decommissioned. The B station has been given a five-year extension and is now owned by EDF Energy. We know that nuclear power works very well and is safe. We have a whole generation of local experts closely involved in the building, management and decommissioning of stations. Last October, we got the go-ahead to create the first nuclear academy in the United Kingdom at Bridgwater college. So there are many positive factors about nuclear power.

Of course, Hinkley Point is far from invisible—nuclear power stations cannot really be hidden. The existing station sits like a concrete castle overlooking the Bristol channel and dominates the skyline in one of the loveliest parts of this country. The plan is to construct a pair of new pressurised water reactors. Such reactors are tried, trusted and used safely all over the world. Two new reactors could pump out enough power to satisfy 4 million customers in the United Kingdom.

I make absolutely no bones about it—this is a massive operation. It will be the biggest ever civil engineering operation in the south-west. It will create 900 permanent jobs and roughly 5,000 people will be needed just to build the new plant. EDF Energy commissioned research into how the work would help the local economy. It estimates that £100 million will be spent every year during the building work and roughly £40 million a year will be spent thereafter, but I ask the Minister—is that enough?

Naturally, we welcome the concept of the new development. Of course we want to have the automatic boost to the local economy that building anything that big would bring, and yes, we need the contractors earning good salaries and spending their money in local shops. Bridgwater is an industrial town and we are very keen on business.

However, as a community, we have every right to ask for something more substantial in return. A nuclear power station is not like a supermarket. It is a gigantic piece of industrial machinery and the new development in my constituency would be slap-bang in the middle of some of England’s loveliest countryside. A fair slice of compensation ought to be in order. Some of it could come in the form of old-fashioned folding money, which would be nice. Some of it could be invested in the local community with sensible, joined-up thinking, which would be nicer still.

Just a few moments ago, I mentioned the nuclear academy at Bridgwater college. Bridgwater college is a remarkable college run by dedicated people who deserve to be at the heart of the work, training the new generation of nuclear experts. You don’t get owt for nowt. Bridgwater college put in the backwork, time and commitment to secure its place in the south-west hub for all nuclear skills training, as part of the nuclear skills academy. It is great to have the college, I am very proud of all its achievements and it has proved its worth, time and again, under the leadership of Fiona McMillan.

As the Minister will be all too aware, spending on education is in the spotlight, not just locally but nationally. Last week, the announcement about the Building Schools for the Future programme dealt a heavy blow in my area; I will come on to the reasoning behind that announcement shortly. We understand the pressures, we know that we must be prudent and we know that the BSF programme was not always very well organised, but Bridgwater college did an excellent job, in the same way that industry in Bridgwater does an excellent job. It produced sensible plans and everybody agreed to them.

Take it from me—cutting back on schools in Bridgwater now or in the future is not the answer to anything. That is especially true because of what we are going to do locally. Cutting back is not the answer if we want to encourage a new generation of professionals, which we must have. It is not the answer if we want to have home-grown nuclear experts, and it is not the answer if, as a Government, we want to have joined-up policy.

Our local schools were ready to sign the relevant documents on the very day that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education made his announcement about the BSF programme. Millions of pounds had been invested and a lot of it had come from the nuclear industry. Some of the building work had already begun and it made perfect sense to carry on.

How many other areas are about to build a huge new nuclear power station? How many other areas were as ready as we were with their plans for schools? Other areas were not ready.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I would say that my area is ready. As with the nuclear power station in his constituency, Wylfa nuclear power station in my constituency has been decommissioned and a new build is happening on-site.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the skills that he is talking about are long-term skills to provide a job for life, that they are transferrable throughout the whole energy sector and that they are vital for the “green deal” that this Government are talking about?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman and his point is well made. I think that the proposals for Wylfa are in phase 2 of the proposals for nuclear power. He makes a good point.

As I was saying, the decision about the BSF programme does not add up. These schools in my area were due to be refurbished and built under the private finance initiative system. It was absolutely right that there should have been public investment in a local economy as good as ours.

Later today, I have an appointment to see the Secretary of State for Education and I intend to leave him in no uncertainty about what his announcement means for the programmes in my area that we are now looking at. However, I first want to offer my hon. Friend the Minister a few ideas that might help his thinking and that of his colleagues.

To build a new nuclear power station requires a reliable operating company, a shedload of money, a sensitive planning system and, perhaps above all, the ability to think outside the box. Deciding to put up a power station today means that we are planning for the next 60 to 150 years. It is ridiculous and completely unfair to see such things in terms of the conventional five-year life span of any Parliament. If we do not get this decision right now, we will be blamed by our children, by our grandchildren and, in the case of nuclear, by our great-grandchildren.

Therefore, I am afraid to say that cheeseparing on education with one hand while trying to nurture a skills academy with the other hand does not make sense to me or to anybody else. Everyone agrees that there is still a national deficit—we know that there is—and that there is a real need to be careful with the precious financial resources that we have. Equally, however, everybody knows that there are several ways to skin a cat.

Why will the Government not examine the possibility of using a proportion of the very substantial business rates that EDF Energy will have to pay to meet some of the extra needs of the community? It is not such an outlandish idea and it was mooted publicly just a few days ago by the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is the Minister with responsibility for decentralisation. He suggested that some major developments should be allowed to take the lion’s share of local business rates for the first six years of their existence. In terms of EDF Energy, that would mean a very healthy sum indeed to pay back to the community; it could amount to £40 million a year.

One might say that such a proposal is a form of legalised bribery and it sounds like an un-British way of going about things. However, there are quite a few solid examples of community funds that were deliberately established to compensate local people in the wake of major developments.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister knows about the Shetland Charitable Trust, which was set up in 1974 when the huge oil terminal at Sullom Voe was built. Shetland council wanted to claw back money from the oil companies to help to compensate fishermen and because it felt that Sullom Voe was an ugly and unnecessary development. However, little councils do not have any power. Parliament pushed through the Zetland County Council Act 1974 to give Shetland council some muscle. The council now has £200 million in the bank and it shells out up to £13 million every year on special community projects. Sullom Voe is nothing like as heavily populated as Bridgwater and West Somerset. We would like a lot more money because, as the advert says, “We’re worth it”.

Another example is Cumbria, home to Sellafield, a nuclear establishment with even more history than Hinkley. The area is covered by Copeland district council, which negotiated a special deal with the Government in 2007 to get compensation for the inconvenience of looking after the nation’s low-level nuclear waste. As the Minister knows, the deal involved the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority paying £10 million up front plus £1.5 million for every year of waste storage. In addition, the parish of Drigg and Carleton gets an extra £50,000 compensation a year for the next 60 years. That is seriously big money, given that only 600 people live there.

I know of many possible ways to spend such sums in and around Hinkley, in both our district council areas. One facility that we lack, for example, is a decent road that bypasses heavily populated areas and goes straight to the power plant. That is not a luxury; it is an absolute necessity given the huge number of lorries required during the plant’s building phase, which will go on for seven years. It is possible to construct a direct link. I congratulate one of my constituents, an engineer named Alan Beasley, who has worked extremely hard to identify a feasible route that would upset the fewest number of people in the area.

We do not yet know what such a scheme might cost, but there are other local sources of money. The Minister might consider having a chat with some of our honourable colleagues about schemes that he could scrap. For instance, the £20 million earmarked for our schools will be used for something else, but £20 million is available next door. The Environment Agency is about to flood the Steart peninsula, which is about 600 yards from the plant at Hinkley. Flooding the peninsula will cost £20 million and is being done to tick boxes in Europe. The official reason is that the flood defences are too old and expensive to keep. Why can we not use that money to help with the nuclear project? The actual reason for the flooding of the peninsula is that regulations and directives on the conservation of wild birds and natural habitats are more important than human beings. I do not think that that is fair. We are all in favour of our feathered friends living happily ever after in the wetlands, but we cannot afford to fork out £20 million for the privilege. If the choice is a genuinely environmental one, a relief road will offer more real environmental benefits than obeying European directives to the last letter.

Like any nuclear power station, Hinkley is a national issue, not just a local one. Our creaking planning system is feeling the strain. The previous Government introduced a wildly extravagant quango called the Infrastructure Planning Commission, where EDF’s plans might have gone for judgment. The new Government have scrapped the IPC and intend to let the Planning Inspectorate take on the task of helping to decide Hinkley’s future. That may look like swapping one quango for another, but if I understand correctly, there will be one fewer quango. However, the complications involved in altering the planning process might lead to more delay, which would not be healthy.

More or less everyone agrees that the bad old days are gone when major projects such as motorways and airports were considered by public inquiries. Good riddance to them. Public inquiries rambled on too long and often failed to reach any definite conclusions. The precise details could not be dealt with because so many activists wanted to argue the moral theories first. That is why years were wasted on the rights and wrongs of aviation rather than on exact plans to expand Heathrow.

Having got rid of the IPC, the Government’s current idea is to let Ministers, advised by the Planning Inspectorate, make the final decision, and perhaps to hold a narrow public inquiry if it is really necessary. However, as far as I can see, the essential ingredient is a national policy statement on nuclear energy, to be ratified by Parliament. Without that, nothing can proceed. I am sorry to say that in July 2010, nine months after I first asked a question about it, we are still here pleading for a national policy statement. Can we please have it soon?

Since I have devoted so much of my speech to money, I ask the Minister to consider another glaring omission from the planning process. France builds nuclear power stations wherever it chooses because landowners and local communities queue up to claim the generous compensation packages on offer. Perhaps it is no accident that EDF Energy, the firm that wants to build Hinkley C and D, is a French company. In my neck of the woods, furious rows are going on about plans to build wind farms. That is not surprising, as the operators are offering pain but no gain to those who happen to live under one. However, in Spain, Denmark and Germany, significant local benefits are built into the fabric of all wind power projects. The companies involved often pay substantial local taxes. All that we have is a woolly voluntary system.

I believe that this Government genuinely want to reform planning for the better, but decent compensation is part and parcel of good planning. I ask the Minister to remember that Hinkley is vital for the nation, and to make it worth while to Somerset to build it.