Wales: Nuclear Power Generation

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I have said that we will set out our future ambition for plans in due course. We have focused very much on getting Sizewell C over the line, and we hope a final investment decision will be made over the next few weeks. We have the SMR programme, we are very keen to see the development of AMRs as well, and we will set out our ambitions in due course. But there is no question about our commitment to taking this forward; we took the decision in 2007 to go back to nuclear. What is so disappointing is that the last Government had 14—it is all very well for noble Lords to shake their heads, complaining about what I am saying. They do not want to hear the facts. They had 14 years to sort this out, and they did not.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, in the light of the outage in Spain and Portugal over the last 48 hours, are not devolved and diffuse sources of clean energy absolutely crucial to our security? What measures will the Government take on the back of what is happening in Spain and Portugal to ensure that we can disconnect from the grid if need be in order to maintain sources across the country?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

We have to be very careful in drawing any conclusions about what happened in Iberia in relation to our own situation—