Lord Elton
Main Page: Lord Elton (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. I assure him that the Energy Act 2004 requires the NDA to consider those very impacts on communities that live nearby. On the example of Sellafield raised by my noble friend, more than 10,000 local people are employed by Sellafield Ltd and there is more than £1 billion of spend. According to the 2011 figures, one-third of that was on local businesses and the supply chain in west Cumbria.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, the letting and continuation of contracts is a highly sophisticated operation, which can have a huge effect on the amount of money needed to run an operation. Where does the Minister’s department get the skills to do this?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I remind my noble friend that the skills in the department and the skills that we bring in from outside are hugely specialised in this area. We are gifted with having some of the greatest minds in the nuclear sector within this country, and we should be very proud of that. We have an absolutely fabulous regulator, which is seen in the world as one of the best. So I do not want to undermine the great skills that we have, but we draw on skills from outside the sector, too.