Nuclear Power Stations

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

The noble Lord is quite right to introduce other forms of energy generation. The truth is that we need everything. If we are to reach zero carbon by 2050, we need a combination of renewables, energy conservation, carbon capture and storage, and battery technologies, as well as nuclear. As far as I know, the energy White Paper will address a number of these issues. Overall, the nuclear strategy will fall into three cross-cutting themes, as set out in the paper, that will result in greater economic opportunity: nations, regions and places; mobilising capital; and harnessing innovation.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to the SMRs. Did the answer that she gave on the involvement of nuclear power stations in 2035 assume that no SMRs will be active by that time? Is that the Government’s policy and, if not, when will the SMRs come on stream?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

The Government’s policy is firmly to encourage the development of both AMRs and SMRs in a number of sites, including—the noble Lord’s own passion—Trawsfynydd and the site in Cumbria. He will have seen the announcement that Rolls-Royce is looking at both sites. We are still investing a lot of R&D money in consortiums that aim to provide small nuclear reactors that contribute to the national grid, although my original Answer did not include the contribution that they could make.