New Nuclear Power

Joan Walley Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

rose—

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

rose—

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[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. In fact, the energy chief executive of Electricité de France, Vincent de Rivaz, told the Financial Times:

“the only thing missing is the contract for difference. Once we have that, we’ll have a compelling investment case to attract partners into the project”.

In other words, “If you don’t subsidise us, there is no business case.” Even with the prospect of subsidy, the business case is not that compelling. On Monday, Centrica pulled out of its partnership with EDF, writing off a cool £200 million and launching a share buy-back scheme to return another £500 million of unused capital to its investors. Like RWE and E.ON before it, and like any sane investor in my view, it has decided that it is not going to touch these new nuclear plans with a bargepole.

[Joan Walley]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to the House this afternoon. Let us consider things in the light of what the House decided last week on the importance of the Liaison Committee and the scrutiny that there should be of all Government policies. This is a cross-cutting issue that affects the Public Accounts Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee and the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change. Given all that, if we are really going to get transparency about what is going into the contracts for difference, so that we can determine whether there is or is not a subsidy, should there not be proper scrutiny by one Select Committee or a combination of Select Committees of this House? That transparency is what the hon. Gentleman is asking for in bringing this issue to the House this afternoon.

[Martin Horwood]

The signatories to the motion have included the Public Accounts Committee in it, but the hon. Lady makes a good case for perhaps extending that level of scrutiny to her own Committee. Of course because there is commercial sensitivity about some of these negotiations, it would be possible for those Committees to meet in private, as other Committees of this House do when dealing with sensitive subjects.

As I was saying, like RWE and E.ON before it, Centrica has decided that it is not going to touch these new nuclear plans with a bargepole—and it is not hard to see why. I do not know of a nuclear power station anywhere in the world that has been completed on time, on budget and without public subsidy. The new third-generation pressurised water reactors planned for the UK—sometimes called European pressurised reactors or EPRs—are already in deep trouble elsewhere. The Olkiluoto plant in Finland was begun in 2005 and should have gone on line in 2009. The latest estimate is that it will not be generating power before 2015, at least six years late. The first cost estimate was €3.7 billion, but now that has risen to €8 billion. Construction in Flamanville in France began in 2007. The Flamanville facility is now four years late and counting, while the costs have escalated even further and faster than those in Finland, from an original guess of €3.3 billion, according to Le Monde, to the €8.5 billion announced just in December. One French commentator said that this latest announcement undermined the credibility of EPRs as a technology export, and Centrica was obviously listening.

Will anyone take Centrica’s place? EDF is apparently talking to partners it has worked with in China, but I would just warn the Secretary of State that, according to the recent Nuclear Materials Security Index report, China ranks 29th among the group of 32 nuclear nations on nuclear security and materials transparency. Given wider security—

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[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I apologise to the Secretary of State that I will not be here for his winding-up speech. In the short time that I have, I want to put on the record a couple of important points relating to last week’s Liaison Committee debate in the House about how Parliament can best scrutinise Government policy.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) on securing this Back-Bench debate. The issue that he has raised is whether new nuclear will go ahead with or without public subsidy. The plain truth is that we have no means of finding out. Because of the commercial confidentiality surrounding the discussions about the contracts for difference, there is no way of telling how much of the Treasury money that was intended to be used for feed-in tariffs and to provide the long-term investment in renewables that we need is being diverted into nuclear power. If that money is being used, it is in direct contradiction to the coalition agreement that any new nuclear would come forward on the basis of market forces.

It is impossible to understand how Government policy is being taken forward in this area, because of the complete lack of transparency and of an evidence base. There is real urgency, not only because we have to act on climate change, keep the lights on and invest for the long term, but because the Energy Bill is going through the House and all the decisions are going to be made with no possibility of scrutiny. As the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has said, she will be able to scrutinise the decision only after it has been made. This is a complete double whammy and we have no way of knowing about the situation.

Will the Secretary of State look again—if not now, he should do so in future discussions with the Liaison Committee—at Energy and Climate Change Committee recommendations stating that it was a mistake by the Government to muddle together nuclear with renewables? Will he, together with his Cabinet colleagues, look at the implications for the green economy and the long-term investment that is needed? If that has to be done in private, he should do it in private with Privy Counsellors or whoever, but we need genuine scrutiny of what the contracts for difference comprise.

I want an energy policy that is fit for purpose, creates jobs and reduces carbon levels, but I believe that the current lack of transparency is not in the interests of good governance or science-based evidence. If the Government chose, they could, with the support of the Liaison Committee, look urgently at a way of getting that information on to the public record.

[Michael Ellis]

Will the hon. Lady also accept that there is a priority and that the Government should focus, as should we all, on an issue she has not mentioned—energy security? Would she be content if the Government were not conscious of that and were held over a barrel by others because our energy security had not been properly considered?

[Joan Walley]

Energy security is top of my list as well, but I would not want the Government—not just now but in 2050 and beyond, which is why we are looking at the decommissioning of nuclear waste—to be held over a barrel as a result of a decision made now that will have a lasting legacy in years ahead.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Given recent threats from EDF Energy over the past couple of days, it seems to me that we are already being held over a barrel in relation to the strike price. We are being asked for extraordinary levels of subsidy by an industry whose subsidy appetite should be not disappearing but declining after 50 years. Instead, it seems to be increasing.

[Joan Walley]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and given what has happened this week with Centrica, and the uncertainty over how the new nuclear power stations will be constructed, everyone is being held over a barrel. That does not mean, however, that we should not sit down and work out together transparently a way of creating an energy policy that is fit for purpose and that our constituents deserve.