National Grid: Capacity

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely correct; the commitment to build the national thermal hydraulics facility was made when we launched the nuclear sector deal in November 2018. It remains the Government’s ambition to do so. The issues recently identified, which have resulted in conversations about this, relate to the need of the Rolls-Royce-led UK SMR consortium to have a slightly larger facility delivered sooner than had been proposed in Ynys Môn. The UK and Welsh Governments are in discussion about how to resolve the planning and timing issues quickly, and they may be able to start the construction of just the facility needed for the Rolls-Royce machine before they proceed with the rest of the site.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my register of interests. The UK Government are committed to a gigawatt-scale nuclear future, but there are now some 72 SMRs in 18 countries. What can we learn from the work that is being done elsewhere, and how can we facilitate the exchange to ensure that we are benefiting from the pace of the fastest in the moving camel train?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that the UK is still one of the front-runners of the development of SMRs, because we acknowledge that SMRs and, indeed, advanced modular reactors will also play an important role as a low-carbon source. The Government announced a £385 million advanced nuclear fund in the energy White Paper, which will support the research and development of both SMRs and AMRs. Of course, we watch with interest the development of other research projects abroad.