Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the Bill. I recall some years ago being on a boat on the Thames with Thames Tideway and being briefed about the massive new tunnel. When the financing was explained, I was not alone in asking whether it had been used for any other big infrastructure projects as, frankly, it seemed too good to be true. That sounds simplistic, but the fact is that I was sold, as were others, on the system of finance. An operational nuclear power station is not the same as a tunnel taking sewage away from London, but the cost, infrastructure and quality-of-life implications are very similar. At the end of the day, of course, the consumer will pay. You cannot hide that fact and nobody seeks to do so. But over the next 30 years, the use of electricity in the United Kingdom will double compared to the 2019 figure. The overall use of energy will go down, and we will use a smaller proportion of oil and gas, and, of course, introduce renewables and hydrogen. This this makes electricity absolutely fundamental. We will always need a baseload, and nuclear is the best form.

I do not think you can be taken seriously as a political party in 2022 if you are not in favour of civil nuclear power: it is as simple as that. I do not want to disparage people, but I am reminded of the brown bread and sandals brigade attacking nuclear not on a scientific basis but on an almost mythical, quasi-anti-religious basis, yet it is clean, green and cheap to operate. We know from our regulatory information powers that it is safe. We started it—we invented it—and we used it to make electricity. We cannot do nothing, given that our older Magnox stations will be phased out in a few years. We have to prove that we have learned the lessons from Hinkley Point C. The National Audit Office has given its approval for the use of alternative financing models, hence this Bill.

I want to be brief, and I have just two key points to make. One relates, as the Minister very fairly pointed out, to customers. The Government have to ensure that customers do not pay more than twice. They will pay twice for this, of course—that is the system; it is split—but they do not need to pay three times. Paying for construction and operation is one thing, but they should not pay for aborted projects or massive cost overruns. There has to be something which gives a degree of confidence. The Government have to prove that they have customers’ interests as a top priority, as energy policy requires that customers change their behaviour. We are asking the citizens of this country to massively change their behaviour, and they have to understand why. We know from the pandemic that behaviour will change if people understand why. We have to be transparent and open about this.

My second point concerns security. There is no reason at all why the UK, along with other democratic states, cannot ensure security and stability of nuclear technology and get control of it itself. My view is that there should be no finance from China or Russia at all. They cannot be trusted with commercial contracts these days. I remember someone once telling me, many years ago, that the Soviet Union had never reneged on a commercial contract. We do not have the Soviet Union now; we have Russia, and it is reneging on commercial contracts. Leave the security bit aside, if you will—I am worried about that as well—but it cannot be trusted on commercial contracts, and we are talking here about very long-term commercial contracts.

We started the process. Okay, it never came about that electricity was so cheap that it was not worth recording, but we are in a different age. We will not have coal and gas to fall back on for a quickie. Nuclear is going to take on an importance beyond keeping the lights on, whether it is the small modular reactors or new build.

I do not want to turn the clock back—it was never the “good old days”—but when I left school, you could get an apprenticeship with the Central Electricity Generating Board. What I cannot see today among the 20 or more different organisations is the replacement for that, so that we can upskill and give careers and a future to the people of this country. We have lost that. I would like to believe that this Bill could be one of the most important that the Government introduce. It could actually be a factor in restoring that from a bygone age.