Capenhurst Facility: High-assay Low-enriched Uranium

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question—he never fails to surprise me with some of the questions that he asks. I can commit to the domestic supply chain. It is important because, as I have said before from the Dispatch Box, we want to get a double hit out of our investment: not only is it about creating that supply chain, it is about the benefits that come with the supply chain and the skills and the jobs that that will mean for Britain. I guarantee to the noble Lord that that is a vital part of this programme. It is a success story for Britain that we should be proud of and that we should focus on. On his wider point about Europe, I am always willing to work with European partners and support the electricity market of Great Britain, and will continue to do so.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, speaking of the supply chain, I want to reference the role of Sheffield Forgemasters, which was taken over by the Government with considerable extra investment, and yet when it comes to the small modular reactors we seem to be outsourcing a lot of the forging work to the Czech Republic and South Korea.

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I do not have direct details on that specific project so I will write to the noble Lord and make sure that I can address those issues. As he will know, the Government’s SMR programme is backed by £2.6 billion across the spending review period and will create 3,000 skilled jobs onsite during peak construction and thousands more across the supply chain. The Government’s ambition is for 70% of SMR supply chain products to be British built, which is shown by over 70% of our £900 million invested into supply chain contracts going into UK-registered companies. As I say, I want this investment to work twice, once in supporting our energy security mission and once for British jobs and British business.