National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the proposed National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath) (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the new National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation EN-7, which was laid before the House on 6 February. In particular, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, who is making her maiden speech. Redditch is not a million miles from Kings Heath, and it is great to welcome a fellow West Midlander to your Lordships’ House; I am sure we anticipate her contribution very much indeed. I am aware that the noble Lords, Lord Liddle and Lord Inglewood, have both withdrawn because they wish to be present for the EU-UK summit Statement, which is to be made shortly.

The Secretary of State and the Government have been clear that nuclear has a crucial role to play in powering Britain’s clean energy future. We see it as making an important contribution to helping the UK become a clean energy superpower, which in turn is a core part of the Prime Minister’s plan for change. For nuclear to play that crucial role, we need to support the construction of new power stations, including by improving how the planning system deals with such proposals. We have already introduced important reforms in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which I understand will be before your Lordships shortly. These will help us to consent to major infrastructure projects more efficiently—for example, by streamlining consultation requirements, providing flexibility in what consenting route is used and removing unnecessary elements of the judicial review process. We are also supporting the production of a strategic spatial energy plan by the National Energy System Operator, which will assess the optimal locations and types of energy infrastructure required to meet energy demand in future.

One of the most important ways we can support major infrastructure development is through national policy statements. These establish the type of infrastructure that is needed and the rules on site selection and mitigating impacts on communities and the environment. The Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy, called EN-1, makes it clear that low-carbon energy infrastructure, including nuclear, is a critical national priority. In a context where electricity demand is expected to double by 2050, even with energy efficiency, EN-1 makes clear that the planning system places no limit on the amount of generating capacity that should be built. This new national policy statement, EN-7, will complement EN-1 and enable nuclear to play its crucial role in four ways.

First, EN-7 states the clear and unambiguous need for new nuclear to achieve energy security, support growth, and mitigate and adapt to climate change. Stating this fact in a national policy statement ensures that it shapes development consent decisions by the Secretary of State.

Secondly, EN-7 will allow, for the first time, developers to consider deploying the full range of nuclear fission technologies at any site in England and Wales that meets its criteria. This brings nuclear into line with other energy subsectors, where businesses routinely explore new growth opportunities without being restricted by assumptions about the scale or location of deployment. This flexibility will support new uses for nuclear, such as combined heat and power, hydrogen production and direct supply to high-demand users, such as heavy industry or AI data centres.

Thirdly, EN-7 imposes a single set of criteria appropriate to nuclear deployment at any scale and in any location. Infrastructure benefits everyone by providing the energy, transport connections, water and waste management capacity we need, but it can impact neighbouring communities and ecosystems. EN-7 supplements the impacts section of EN-1 with nuclear-specific detail on key areas including population density, flood protection and the use of water for cooling.

Fourthly, EN-7 goes further than previous national policy statements in clarifying the development consent process beside regulatory licences. Industry tells us that it is unsure of when and how to engage the various planning bodies and regulators, and that this is driving up costs and slowing delivery. This requires a multifaceted response, but EN-7 plays its part by clarifying that, first, the Secretary of State may decide that the low-carbon energy benefits of nuclear outweigh the residual risks remaining after mitigation; and, secondly, the Secretary of State should grant development consent if they are satisfied that there is no good reason why the project will not eventually gain regulatory approval.

Some of the responses have asked what EN-7 means for the sites listed in the previous national policy statement, EN-6. I want to make it clear to noble Lords that those sites will not be disadvantaged by EN-7, because both national policy statements have consistent criteria. Any of the advantages of the sites listed in EN-6 that are evident in a development consent application will be given great weight by EN-7. For example, EN-7 clearly requires a connection to the grid or end-user. This is what matters in practice when applications for development consent are being decided.

Our public consultation so far has found that stake- holders agree that EN-7 is a positive step forward. We received 77 responses from across industry, local authorities, campaigners and private individuals. A clear majority agree that EN-7 is future-proofed to deal with advancements in technology, applies the criteria properly and takes a sensible, pragmatic approach to population density requirements. A majority also agree with keeping the scope of EN-7 to nuclear projects with a generating capacity of at least 50 megawatts in England or 350 megawatts in Wales.

I also note that most respondents believe that we could do even more to support industry through the consenting and regulatory process. EN-7 could never solve this challenge on its own, which is why we are developing supplementary information for potential developers on the development consent process. Alongside the designation process for EN-7, we will seek input from industry and planning experts over the summer to develop it further.

We are also reviewing the regulatory regime in depth through the nuclear regulatory task force. This is examining measures to better support growth and innovation, including faster approvals of new reactor technology designs; international collaboration, potentially including the recognition of designs approved by other trusted safety regimes; and improved ways of working between regulators and industry. The regulatory task force is progressing swiftly. It completed its call for evidence on Monday this week, and in October it will report to the Prime Minister, the Secretaries of State for Energy and Defence and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is time limited in that respect.

We have received strong support for EN-7. The question of how to site nuclear power in light of small and advanced modular reactors has been pressing for years. We have consulted extensively with industry, planning and environmental experts, as well as the public, and now is the time to implement it.

In the time that I have been in this job, it has become clear that, compared with when we took the decision to go back to new nuclear in 2007, there has been a sea-change in support for nuclear. I believe there is a critical mass of support that recognises that nuclear is the essential baseload for a clean energy system and that we have a huge opportunity to grow and innovate in this country to develop a UK supply chain. I know that there is a certain frustration about a number of critical decisions that have to be made over the next few weeks. None the less, I hope that, as we go through that, we can make positive announcements that will lay the foundation for moving forward. EN-7 is clearly one of the policy statements that underpins the advances we want to make.

I look forward to the contributions of Members of the Committee to this interesting debate. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, is very experienced and knows that departmental spring is not entirely consistent with meteorological science. I very much take the point, however, that we all want to see a final investment decision on Sizewell C—except the noble Lord, Lord Howell—and great progress on the SMR programme.

This has been a really interesting debate, and I just make it clear that the contributions that noble Lords have made today will be fed into the consideration of our final version of EN-7. In a sense, the debate does not finish here; we will make sure that the contributions are considered very carefully by officials before we receive final advice on the contents.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, on a very lively, excellent maiden speech. We look forward to her future contributions. She will discover that the West Midlands is not overrepresented in your Lordships’ House, so it is very good to see her here. I did not know about Redditch tights—I now know—but I do know about the potential of Redditch. I also share her view about the need to encourage the aspirations of young people in Redditch, and I know about the work being done on the educational system there to try to improve aspirations, including through access to higher and further education.

This debate has been very encouraging. When I last had this job in 2008 to 2010, there was much more of a mixed view, inside and outside Parliament, about the role of nuclear. There has been a huge change in attitudes and in support for nuclear. We know that from the regular polling that my department has done on public attitude following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Among experts and political parties, there is generally now a baseload of support for nuclear, which is really encouraging. Given the long lead times of investment decisions and build for nuclear, having stability for the companies that wish to take this forward is absolutely crucial, as it is in terms of building a UK supply chain. This kind of debate is therefore very encouraging in that respect.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was disappointed with EN-7. On future demand, there is clearly a range of estimates for what we need based on assumptions including the extent of electrification, the role of hydrogen and the growth of artificial intelligence. I assure him that we are not wedded to a single estimate, but we clearly have to flex the supply of electricity generation according to how we go forward in relation to the future.

On EN-7 and his argument that it insufficiently mentions SMRs, we believe that EN-7 caters to SMRs throughout. We do not refer to broad categories such as SMRs as planning decisions will reflect the facts of each set of plans rather than what they are called. The different characteristics of SMRs are addressed, particularly when it refers to phased development and cooling, where we recognise that different stations may be cooled in completely different ways.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, made a number of remarks about Sizewell C that I do not think other noble Lords agree with. I know that he thinks that the replication of Sizewell C in relation to Hinkley Point will not lead to improvements in productivity, but I point him to the improvement in productivity between unit one of Hinkley Point C and unit two. To be fair, we know that Hinkley Point C has had many challenges, and clearly we are all anxious to see further progress made, but it has made progress. There is no doubt that it has learned about how to build on a huge site using the modular approach in many ways. I am convinced that Sizewell C will benefit hugely from it. Pulling the plug on Sizewell C and saying that we will put all our eggs in the SMR basket would be greeted with consternation within the industry. That is not the way to go forward.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, about the RAB model. That was an important consideration. I was interested in what she had to say about the coalition agreement in 2010, and I still remember the decision made to withdraw support from Sheffield Forgemasters in 2010, which I think was a big mistake. I pay tribute to Sheffield Forgemasters, the work it is now doing and its potential.

On the financing of SMRs, there are plenty of companies which are knocking on our doors saying, “Just give us the green light. We can develop all this. We do not need any public money”. Allow me to be a little sceptical, particularly when it comes to first-of-a-kind development. Coming back to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, about the share of GDP spent on public finances, et cetera, nuclear is one of those areas where you need public and private partnership. Of course we will develop our policies over the next few months, in particular in relation to advanced modular reactors, and look at the best way we can encourage private finance, because clearly we need the private sector to finance the development of AMRs in future. However, at the moment, and we have seen this with Sizewell C, public finance will be involved with the development of SMRs. Public finance is involved.

Clearly noble Lords are impatient for us to get to the end of the current programmes. We have basically inherited GBN’s assessment of SMRs. We cannot intervene now. It is working as hard as it possibly can to get decisions to government very quickly. Of course it is then tied into the spending review process, as it has to be, but the spending review outcomes are going to be known within a very short space of time. I do not accept that we are at risk of falling behind. I know from various discussions that I have had with other countries that there is huge interest in the GBN process. I hope that at the end of the process we will have a decision that will enable us to go forward with confidence and with the huge opportunity of developing a UK supply chain.

On the various contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, I first thank him for all the work he has done in the Midlands, showing the potential that we have in the Midlands, both east and west. He and his colleagues, uniquely, have brought the east Midlands and the West Midlands together, which as he and anyone living in the Midlands will know, is one of the greatest challenges known to men and women. Even though Brum is only a few miles away from Derby and Leicester, pulling them together is hard. He and his colleagues have done that and my department is very interested in the work that he is doing. I have already met him and I hope that he will carry on this work. It is worth saying that we already have huge assets. For instance, at the grid in Warwick, we have great skills and I am sure that we will contribute more in the future. That is probably not a departmental view, but noble Lords will know where I stand on these matters.

On community support, I very much take the point. It is an unknown quantity at the moment. With the existing sites that are listed in EN-6, we know that there was broad support in the local community for the development of new nuclear. We do not really know what the appetite will be in those areas that are new to nuclear. I take the point about the need for communications—mainly by the developers but I accept that the Government have a role. I should say that today we published our Community Benefits and Shared Ownership for Low Carbon Energy Infrastructure working paper for consultation, which may be helpful in encouraging communities to host infrastructure, receiving high-quality benefits in a consistent manner by building on existing voluntary approaches to community benefits.

On the noble Earl’s point about the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, this will not be limited by EN-6 but will be consistent with it, as it obviously should be in EN-7. He asked about the threshold of 50 megawatts in England and 350 megawatts in Wales. This applies to planning applications, so it would naturally incorporate entire projects and entire sites. We think it unlikely that a developer would split a complex nuclear project into multiple planning applications to try to game the system. If they did, we could call in the applications and treat them as nationally significant infrastructure projects. I think that, given the scale of investment that is concerned, that is very unlikely.

I turn to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, I take her point on population density. We had a lot of discussions about that before we published EN-7 and we are continuing to look at it in the EN-7 consultation. Any change we make has got to be broad-based and based on strong evidence. There is obviously a balance between safety, certainty of industry and public confidence. We are still considering this point. We are of course reviewing the national policy statement at least every five years and the review will give us an opportunity to revisit this as evidence develops and we gain experience of community attitudes in, say, urban populations, which we do not really know at the moment.

A very important point was made about water. EN-1 requires applicants to consider water quality and resources in detail, covering both construction and operation. Obviously, they need to engage early with the Environment Agency and water companies, but it is a substantive point. Of course, we have the more general issue of the need to build reservoirs, and I am well aware of some the discussions taking place about this at the moment.

My judgment on Sellafield, having revisited it after a gap of 14 years, is that it has made considerable progress. There is a long way to go, but I pay tribute to the work that is being done, the current leadership at Sellafield and the good relationships it has with the workforce. My judgment is that we need to see Sellafield as part of the future rather than just a legacy of the past. The skills developed at Sellafield—and, generally, in nuclear decommissioning—contribute to the industry as a whole. Confidence in the future and new nuclear depends on our being seen to deal with waste and decommissioning as effectively as possible.

We did not know that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, was such an expert and had such experience. His constructive approach to new nuclear in north Wales is very much appreciated. He has made the point to me, and I very much accept it. He will know that Wylfa offers many attributes; that is why it is listed in EN-6. I also understand the issue about Trawsfynydd and isotope production. Isotopes are a matter for my colleagues in the Department of Health, and I encourage the noble Lord to talk to them about that.

I visited Wylfa in 2009 and met many people in the workforce there. At that point, they were very keen to see nuclear development continue. It is a matter of great regret that the Horizon project fell apart, but we certainly consider Wylfa to be a site that offers many attributes.

On the issue of the sites listed in EN-6 that missed out, we are saying, in essence, that we have those sites and they continue to have much to offer, but we want a more flexible siting to allow more areas to come in. Before this was published, I was very keen not to suggest that, suddenly, the sites we listed in EN-6 were being overlooked, because they are not. Clearly, they offer many advantages.

My noble friend Lord Browne made a number of important contributions. On Scotland, it is interesting that, between 2004 and 2021, nuclear energy accounted for 25% to 43% of annual electricity generation. Scotland has this hugely rich heritage, and it is a tragedy that, at the moment, we cannot see new nuclear developments in that country. Let us hope that we see a change.

My noble friend’s remarks on the COP declaration on nuclear energy—on the risk of proliferation and the security issues that arise—were very important. The COP declaration itself and the addition of a number of countries—which, as he mentioned, was announced in the previous COP—are to be encouraged.

We are strong supporters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has such a vital role to play on nuclear deproliferation. Its work in Ukraine over the past year or two has been amazing and the people involved in that deserve great credit. The UK is one of its strongest supporters and is acknowledged as such. I have had a series of meetings with the agency to talk about these matters.

I totally agree with my noble friend about the UK’s potential with the SMR programme globally. I know that we need to make progress quickly, but we have not missed, and will not miss, the boat. We have a great opportunity.

I very much take the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about the energy needs of AI, which will make huge electricity demands but can make great contributions to improving our energy efficiency and the efficiency of the whole energy sector. We want AI to be linked to decarbonised energy. That is what is so exciting about what is happening in the US and the support that companies such as Amazon are giving to AI centres linked to nuclear power stations. We are looking at that carefully. Over the next few months, we want to work to ensure we have policies that make it as easy as possible for these to be developed using funding from private finance. The noble Earl asked me a question about one or two SMRs. He does not really expect me to be in a position to answer that. We will just have to be patient at this point.

Geological disposal is important, of course. EN-7 makes a number of points about waste, its importance and how it needs to be factored into the developers’ considerations and applications. I cannot give timelines on geological disposal. The noble Earl will understand that the Lincolnshire position is difficult at the moment, and we are not absolutely certain about where we are going with that. Clearly, the long-term future in relation to waste is geological disposal, but interim storage is of the highest quality and can assure safety. It fits into the general position. I cannot comment on the CNC role and security issues. All I will say is that security at our existing sites and new sites is crucial.

I fear I am going over my time, but I must refer to the important contribution by the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. We are totally agreed on the importance of nuclear energy and safety standards. Let me reassure her that our review of the regulatory system will not put safety at risk. I will make just one point about international collaboration. Surely we can do more to share knowledge and information. If in the US, for instance, a technology has been given approval, there must be ways in which we can have reciprocity. I am convinced of that. In relation to the collaboration between regulators, we need to do much more. A comment was made earlier about the roles of Natural England and the Environment Agency. We have to ensure that these regulators work together and in a timely way.

Perhaps I can pass on oil and gas, as we have debated that many times, but nuclear innovation is very important. The Prime Minister’s visit to the UK National Nuclear Laboratory in Springfields only a couple of months ago was a signal of the Prime Minister’s support for nuclear and our innovation.

I am sorry that I have taken so long, but this has been a really interesting debate. The contributions of noble Lords have been very helpful. They will be carefully considered by my officials before advice is given to Ministers.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I apologise to the Committee. I should have started my speech by drawing attention to my registered interests. I still have a small legacy involvement with a Canadian nuclear company.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness.

Motion agreed.