Magnox: Early Contract Terminations

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to the workforce. As he will be aware, good progress has been made in decommissioning the site in Bradwell, with the underground waste vaults containing intermediate level waste having been cleared and decontaminated. That is a reflection of the hard work. There is a separate set of discussions and consultations going on with regard to the pension arrangements, which is not related to today’s announcement.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his response and the shadow Secretary of State for securing this urgent question. This debacle shows that the UK Government cannot even manage their current nuclear project, which comes at great cost to the taxpayer, leaving their case for a nuclear energy future more threadbare than ever. Given the bizarre and illogical decision to leave Euratom, the trade union Prospect is right to be concerned and to seek reassurances that uncertainty over the future of decommissioning will not lead to a deterioration in standards. What assurance can the Secretary of State give today?

This should be a wake-up call. The UK Government’s nuclear obsession will do nothing to lower energy bills and will only burden the next generation with unprecedented economic, environmental and security instability and risk. The Tories should do the responsible thing and scrap their nuclear obsession in favour of investment and renewable energy in carbon-capture technology. Scottish Renewables recently reported that one in six renewable energy jobs in Scotland will be under threat in the next year. Will the Government acknowledge that their energy policies need to be reviewed to allow the Scottish Government to continue with their competent and ambitious vision of a prosperous green future? Finally, when can we expect full details of the timetable of the investigation into this matter?

[Greg Clark]

A little humility might be appropriate here, because the Scottish Government provided oversight of this procurement as part of the NDA competition programme board. I am sure that the lessons to be learned from 2012 to 2014 also apply to the Government in Scotland. I am sure that, whatever the view on future new nuclear power, the people of Scotland, as well as those of the whole of the United Kingdom, would want the existing nuclear power stations to be decommissioned safely and to have arrangements in place to ensure that that can be done reliably. On the independent review, which I hope the hon. Lady welcomes, I have asked Mr Holliday to give some interim findings by October, so that they can inform the further decisions about the re-letting of the contract.