Generic Design Assessment

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Mr John Hayes)]

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA) have today announced their decisions, as part of their generic design assessment (GDA) process, to issue final design acceptances, for the AREVA European pressurised water reactor. These will consist of an ONR design acceptance confirmation (DAC) and an EA statement of design acceptability (SoDA).

This is a key moment, and an essential step, on the path for delivering safe and secure nuclear new build in the UK. These decisions signal the completion of the Government’s facilitative actions set out in the 2008 White Paper on nuclear power and demonstrate another clear step to building confidence in the UK new nuclear build programme.

We welcome the decisions of the independent regulators and congratulate them on the important work that they have undertaken over the last five years in making GDA an internationally respected process.

GDA has provided us with an important blueprint for enhanced openness and transparency in nuclear regulation and has demonstrated the gains that can be made through close working between both of the UK’s nuclear regulators.