Lord Patel
Main Page: Lord Patel (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Verma
The noble Lord is absolutely right. He will be aware that our own Dr Mike Weightman was very involved in the work going on after Fukushima. We remain closely involved with Japan’s nuclear work. I think that we meet about twice a year bilaterally, but we are always talking with Japan in international forums.
Lord Patel
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the UK currently ranks 15th out of 16 in its spend on nuclear fission research, spending one-tenth of what Belgium does and half of what Finland spends? What should the UK spend?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Lord would draw me into providing a figure but I am not prepared to do so at this stage. However, we take our research and development very seriously and we are investing an awful lot of money in research and development, but it is also about the quality of research, not just the quantity of money being spent.