Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Sarah Owen Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (Greg Hands)]

First, may I minute my condolences on the death of Jack Dromey? I shared his 12 years here and he made an enviable contribution to the House. Particular condolences to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman).

I am thankful for the excellent contributions we have heard today, and over the past few weeks during the passage of the Bill through the House, from Members throughout the House. I will attempt to address all Members’ comments and explain why the Government do not believe that today’s amendments should be accepted.

I turn first to new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) for the SNP, regarding the special administration regime, but before I deal with his amendments, let me reflect a little bit on the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). The SNP, as we know, is talking today about transparency, but its real agenda is a hardcore anti-civil nuclear power agenda. This comes, ironically, just a few days after the closure of the Hunterston power station, which had its life extended by two decades beyond what was predicted and provided 31 years—31 years—of zero-carbon electricity to every home in Scotland. The Bill would make things cheaper, but I do not think that the SNP has got Scotland’s best interests at heart here for Scottish electricity or Scottish consumers.

Nuclear power has been a massive success story in Scotland, which is what I hope the Bill will also enable. New clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, would severely risk the effectiveness of the special administration regime by delaying the speed at which an administrator could access funding to continue a nuclear RAB project construction or a plant’s generation of electricity. That could result in significant sunk costs for consumers and is not in the public interest.

I will turn now to Labour amendments 1 and 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), while responding to some of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member and I are aligned in our concern that foreign investment in our critical infrastructure should not come at the cost of national security. However, I want to be clear that the Bill is not about decisions on individual future projects; it is about widening the pool of potential investors and financing while reducing our reliance on state-owned developers to build new nuclear power stations. As the House is aware, we have committed to taking at least one project to final investment decision in this Parliament, subject to value for money and all relevant approvals. We are in active negotiations on the proposed project at Sizewell C. The hon. Member argued that the approval of Hinkley Point C would inexorably lead to the approval of other projects. That is simply not the case. Decisions on nuclear projects in this country are made on a case-by-case basis, and subject to a number of robust approvals from both Government and independent regulators.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I am not going to take an intervention. I will respond to the debate first.

Whatever the intent of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test with amendments 1 and 2—this is the crux of the argument, ably pointed out in interventions by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester—they could rule out many companies from investing in new projects under a RAB model. The RAB model is designed to bring in new investment, but in my view and in the view of the Government, his amendment would severely restrict who could invest. It could extend to some of our closest international partners. My advice is that EDF itself would be very much in scope, or at least it would be arguable in court as being in scope, of his amendment. It could also mean the rejection of huge amounts of potential investment from bodies such as major sovereign wealth funds of friendly or allied countries.

I am sure that the hon. Member’s intent does not lie in that direction, as that could make it much harder to bring new projects to fruition, and the purpose of the RAB model is to find new investors. We also need to maintain resilience in our fuel supply chain, referred to in amendment 2. I put on record my visit to Springfields recently to give the UK Government’s support, including funding announced in the spending review recently, to make sure that we have that flexibility.