Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between James Cleverly and Lord Walney

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock]

I tried to listen carefully.

I have some sympathy with Ministers. I am reminded of Dora Gaitskell in 1961 when she turned to her husband Hugh, that great leader of the Labour party—

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Those were the days.

[John Woodcock]

Don’t tempt me!

Hugh Gaitskell had just turned on its head his previously strong support for the EU by saying that joining Euratom would be like reversing 1,000 years of Britain as an independent state, and Dora said to her husband, “All the wrong people are cheering”. The Minister has had enthusiastic endorsements not only from the hon. Member for North West Hampshire, who belongs to the new generation of hard Brexiteer, but from the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who I saw leaping to his feet enthusiastically, and others. He needs to look around at who his friends are on this and push much harder for the view that we might speculate is his own personal view—that the course the Government have set is potentially deeply damaging for the nation, for civil nuclear power and, as I will come to, for many workers in my constituency and far more in that of the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison).

The Bill is a hastily constructed life raft. Labour Members are not against life rafts—some of us have of late considered them in other circumstances. They might sometimes be necessary, and we will engage constructively in Committee to improve this hastily and poorly constructed life raft, but we should not be seeking to bail from the nuclear ship at all, as is currently the Government’s policy. I asked the Secretary of State two important questions—he was generous in allowing me to intervene on him twice—but to my mind he answered neither. The Minister might do so now or in his summing up if he wishes. First, is it the Government’s policy to negotiate a transition agreement beyond 2019, so that the cliff edge we are currently facing recedes at least by a few years? Secondly, are the Government seeking associate membership, which would negate the need for a whole new set of nuclear co-operation agreements?

I know that Ministers are inclined to put on a brave face, but still I must note the level of optimism coming from the Dispatch Box. The Minister will know better than me that the civil service is bursting at the seams trying to deliver the panoply of new treaties and arrangements that Brexit is forcing on the country. It is at best highly doubtful that there will be the capacity in the system at our end to put together a whole new set of comprehensive NCAs to alleviate the problem by 2019, and that puts at risk not only the current generation of civil nuclear power stations but the future generation.

Since the Minister took up his job, he has been engaged privately, like his predecessors, in trying to rescue the NuGen deal, which, if it goes ahead, will create up to 20,000 jobs in Copeland’s local economy. Several hundred of my constituents already go up the road and coast every day to work at Sellafield. We are talking about thousands more jobs, but that deal has potentially been damaged by the uncertainty around the post-Brexit arrangements—not only the final outcome but the Government’s intentions now. That uncertainty might deter this vital new investor, which can keep those 20,000 jobs on track in our local economy and help the UK to keep the lights on.

The situation is deeply worrying. I realise that many current and future Ministers will not have wanted to be in this situation, but they have some agency and could be clearer with the nuclear industry and other nations watching about where exactly they want to end up. That is the responsible way to safeguard jobs in our local area.