Ynys Môn: Economy

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point about trying to preserve the corporate knowledge within Wylfa and I will certainly take back this concern and proposal to the department. Wylfa still has the potential to be part of the north-west nuclear arc, along with the national thermal hydraulic research centre, the Trawsfynydd site for SMR, AMR and, potentially, medical radio isotopes, alongside Bangor University, which is a centre of excellence for nuclear studies.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, does the difficulty of finding a company to build a large nuclear power station at Ynys Môn not highlight the lack of nuclear expertise in this country—the first country to actually use nuclear for civil purposes. The one area where we do still have it is building nuclear units for submarines. Perhaps I might add my voice to that of the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, and ask my noble friend to consider a small modular reactor at this site; after all, additional modules can be added later.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

There are indeed design proposals that involve a number of small modular reactors on that site, and the Government believe that these will play an important role alongside large nuclear for low-carbon energy. As I have said before, the energy White Paper has put £385 million towards an advanced nuclear fund to support research and development into both SMRs and AMRs.