Civil Nuclear Road Map

Paul Beresford Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I am a little cautious about rising to speak, because like other Members in the past, I have great enthusiasm and a great understanding of the need, but considerable ignorance of the physics involved, having left physics behind 30 or 40 years ago.

I have two personal links to this matter, the first being a slightly amusing one. I lived in a little place called Richmond in the north of the south island of New Zealand. Just down the road is a place called Appleby, which is even smaller. In the 1870s, the school at Appleby had four pupils. One of them was Ernest Hemingway. Sorry, it was not Ernest Hemingway. [Interruption.] It was—our nuclear man. His first invention was a potato masher for his grandmother, which I thought was quite an interesting link because, as we all know, he went on to smash the atom, as it has been put. My enthusiasm comes from recognition that we must have nuclear power in this country, even if we take into account the point about hydroelectric, but without the facilities, we cannot have it.

My second link to this matter is that a firm in my constituency, KBR, is a power in nuclear production. It welcomes this road map, but has concerns about it. I invite the Minister to have a roundtable discussion; he could bring in the key players to sit down with him and talk the whole project through. KBR’s feeling—and I sense this as well—is that we have a classic case of UK caution in this area. We had a positive response to small modular reactors in the case of Rolls-Royce and TerraPower, but we do not seem to be getting stuck in with and behind advanced modular reactors, as has already been mentioned.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I think the right hon. Member might make this rather difficult for me because of my lack of knowledge, but I will give way.

[Mark Tami]

I promise the hon. Member that I will not. As someone who is very pro-nuclear, I believe that one big issue is that we have loads of reviews, and identify all the problems and what we will do, and then never actually do it. If we do get around to building a station, we build one—not a number of them; just one. Then, a number of years after that, we might build another one, but to a completely different design. That is how we keep going in this country. Does he agree?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Mr Beresford, I think the name you were struggling to find was Ernest Rutherford.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

Sorry?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It was Ernest Rutherford. The Government Whip, the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), is the genius, not me.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

Thank you. The Whip has saved me! I had actually worked it out and was going to bring it up. The other thing that rather kicked my memory was that when I went out to the same place last September, I stayed at the Rutherford hotel. Oh dear; my English and English literature are better than my physics, I concede.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami). That is the point that KBR and others are making: this is an opportunity that we have the distinctly British possibility of missing. KBR is going in particular for AMRs. It has come back to me and complained, as it will to the Minister—just to prepare him for that meeting—about our clumsy development consent order, which delays everything, is bureaucratic and problematic, and could be considerably easier. As a result, we are slipping behind some of the rest of the world. For example, the United States advanced reactor and advanced modular reactor technology developer, TerraPower, has a financed match programme well under way that will achieve power generation in the US by 2030. We have that opportunity, and we have the right attitude, but we are not doing it.

I stop at this point, having made my complaint and missed Lord Rutherford’s name. We owe our nation the facilities to produce the extra 40% of power that we will need when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. The water will keep running, but that is a very minor part of our power. We do not have those facilities, and if we miss this opportunity, we will hand our children a low-grade state. While I welcome the road map, it is not enough. It does not move fast enough, and it does not contain the funding we need, but it does have the co-operation of the industry, which will bring its money bags with it. As such, I invite the Minister to come along and talk to some of the key people in a short roundtable discussion. Lord Rutherford will be there in the walls behind us.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Energy Infrastructure

Paul Beresford Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

In September last year, I was lucky enough to go back to visit New Zealand, tone up my accent, learn about the All Blacks and all that sort of stuff. I went to the South Island only, and at the beginning of the trip I went through a tiny village in the north of the South Island called Appleby. In the early to mid-1870s, Appleby had a tiny school with four pupils. Looking at it as I went through, it probably still has a tiny school with four pupils. However, one of those four pupils in the early to mid-1870s grew up to be a man called Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics. So it always quietly amuses me that, despite that, New Zealand has a mind-numbing allergy to nuclear power. Fortunately for New Zealand, it can get away with it, because it has wind—plenty of it in the north of the North Island at the moment—as well as solar, geothermal and hydroelectric, and all in abundance, as well as a relatively small population.

We do not have that in the UK. For us, nuclear power will have to be a substantial contribution to our power source—perhaps as much as 40%, perhaps more. At the moment, nuclear provides only 19% of our current demand, so, sadly, we are starting from a low base. Of our 13 current reactors, all but one are to close, as I understand it, from 2030. This coincides with the anticipated launch of Hinkley Point C, while Sizewell C has planning permission, but is years away from providing power. Fortunately, the Government have started a little lateral thinking, and they are opening the doors to small modular reactors. A number of British or British-based firms lead the world in this area.

I find the area of nuclear power fascinating, but I have to admit, before I get any awkward technical questions, that this is putting a strain on my physics knowledge, because it is years out of date and I studied it only briefly at university. In the UK, traditionally we are looking at light water reactors, but I understand that we are also looking, and should be looking, at speeding up the process for advanced modular reactors. These, I understand, would be complementary to the other small modular reactors. I am led to believe that advanced modular reactor development should and could be funded by industry, actively supported by the Government, to move faster. These reactors, I am told, could come on stream early, thus filling the potential impending gap in our energy supply.

Of course, our golden gem, which is almost within the UK’s grasp, is the prospect of harnessing fusion, rather than fission. The research unit at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy near Oxford is probably leading the world in this field. Fusion energy sustainable technologies have to be the answer to supply a growing population in the UK and potentially globally—perhaps even New Zealand in time. Fusion energy produces no greenhouse gases, is inherently safe and provides virtually limitless fuels, while waste is minimal, so it fits all the criteria. Fusion will have a key role to play in the energy market of the future. I can recommend a visit and a guided tour of Culham: it is exciting. As I have mentioned, I must admit that it strained my ancient university lessons on physics and I struggled to keep up, but even with my limited knowledge, I could see that this has to be our energy saviour.

Culham is in the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority collection. While this is sensible in some ways, it does mean that it is within the chicken coop of civil service pay scales.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Sir Paul Beresford]

Sorry, but the hon. Gentleman came late to the debate, and I am just about to finish.

This, I believe, makes it difficult for Culham to attract and retain its highly important specialised staff. External attraction of staff must be expected: they are being drawn to and enticed away by other countries, which are chasing exactly the same target. In this situation—I hope the Government will take this point, and I know a number of Ministers have promised to look at it—the Culham pay deficit anomaly really should be sorted out urgently.

For those who are interested, the development and use of fission and ultimately of fusion nuclear power in the United Kingdom is really exciting at the moment. For a change, the United Kingdom is leading research and leading new development, and we are using this development ourselves, rather than, as we so often did in the past, passing it on to somebody else. This area is a development of which we can be patriotically proud.