Nuclear Power: Toshiba

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if he will make a statement on Toshiba’s decision to withdraw from the development of a nuclear power plant at Moorside in Cumbria.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)]

At its board meeting last Thursday, the Japanese company Toshiba confirmed that it proposed to wind up its subsidiary NuGen following an earlier decision to exit the overseas nuclear power business. This followed the well known financial difficulties of Toshiba’s US subsidiary, Westinghouse. Following that, Toshiba considered the sale of NuGen, but, having failed to agree terms, the Toshiba board decided that the company will instead be wound up. I met board members of Toshiba in Tokyo on Wednesday, and they confirmed that the board’s decision was a commercial one. The decision is ultimately a matter for Toshiba and we fully understand the challenging circumstances that that company has faced over the past 18 months.

The Moorside site in west Cumbria is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the land will revert to the NDA. It remains a potential site for nuclear new build and the NDA will consider a range of options for its future. The Government are fully committed to new nuclear being part of a diverse supply of energy. The EDF-led Hinkley Point C is under construction and future potential projects include Wylfa, Sizewell C, Bradwell and Oldbury. All projects are developer-led and can proceed if, and only if, they satisfy the most stringent safety and regulatory approvals process and if, at the point of a contract being issued, they demonstrate value for money compared with alternative sources of electricity generation available at the time.

I recognise that last week’s announcement will be a disappointing but not an unexpected one to the people of west Cumbria. One thing is certain: west Cumbria will continue to be a centre for excellence in civil nuclear. It is of huge strategic importance to the UK and a source of large numbers of highly skilled and well-paid jobs and will be for many decades to come.

[John Woodcock]

And so the people of Cumbria are thrown under a bus. I thank the Secretary of State for that statement, but I have to say that it is extraordinary that he has had to be dragged to the Chamber to make it rather than offering it proactively on a project that will affect up to 21,000 jobs in the constituency of the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) and many, many in my constituency and across Cumbria.

In his initial statement, the Secretary of State did not even commit to a new civil nuclear power plant in the Cumbrian area. It is just not good enough. It is not good enough for the Government to hide behind the idea that this is simply a commercial decision, because he knows that if the Government had offered terms to NuGen, to Kepco, to Toshiba that were on a par with those that they have offered on other sites in the country, this deal could have been salvaged.

I would like to hear from the Secretary of State this afternoon. Surely this is not the end. Will he commit to working with the people of Cumbria, their MPs, their council, and their local enterprise partnership to salvage the prospect of new civil nuclear in Cumbria? Does he recognise the hole that losing Moorside will create for the UK’s ability to generate low-carbon energy, and does he see the potentially irreversible decline in absolutely essential nuclear skills in Cumbria for the nation if civil nuclear is not allowed to go ahead on the site?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that the nuclear industry is very important to his constituents, as it is to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison).

The hon. Gentleman knows that no one is more committed than I am to the future of nuclear power in this country. It is this Government who have revived nuclear power following more than 25 years in which no new nuclear power station was inaugurated. He knows that the approach that we have taken to new nuclear power stations is that they should be developer-led. That has always been the case since the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) was Secretary of State and established this approach and this policy.

The hon. Gentleman knows very well, because he talks to the executives himself, that the problems that Toshiba has encountered during the past 18 months, since the entry into chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings of its Westinghouse subsidiary, have made for a fundamental review of its strategy. It has decided, for commercial reasons, which the board of Toshiba told me, in person, on Wednesday, that it wants to concentrate on its activities away from international nuclear. The announcement is a consequence of that. Obviously, it is not possible to enter into negotiations with a counter-party that is exiting the business and does not have the financial opportunity to be able to take on this project. That has been clear, as he knows, for some time.

I was certainly very clear in my response to the hon. Gentleman that I regard the site, when it returns to the NDA, as available for further projects, and I will work very closely with those in the industry, including his predecessor. Of course I will meet the hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland, and other people who take the same interest that I do in the future of nuclear in this country, and particularly in west Cumbria.