Weightman Report (Fukushima)

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

That was a very bad start. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was present at a seminar organised by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in the summer, at which Dr Weightman was asked whether he was allowed to consider costs. He said no, his remit was not to consider costs, so I believe that the Secretary of State is entirely mistaken in what he has said here. We have in the report a statement of the fairly obvious—namely, that this country is not going to have the kind of tsunamis and earthquakes that they have in Japan. It does not contain a word about the reason for the rush from nuclear throughout the world, which is cost. That is the reason that Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Malaysia and Thailand have moved away from it, and the reason that companies such as Siemens have pulled out and that RWE is probably going to do so.

I am afraid that, from the start of the disaster, the Government have decided to cover up and to conceal, but the evidence is there. The Guardian published internal e-mails from Government Departments that showed that the Business and Energy Departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational corporations EDF, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure that the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in Britain. This is a quite disgraceful, scandalous collusion between the Government and those companies, which have a commercial interest in making large sums of money out of nuclear power.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently remind the hon. Gentleman, lest he forget, that he is asking a question?

[Paul Flynn]

I would like the Secretary of State to comment on the veracity of this claim. The e-mails said that the scandal of the accident had

“the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally.”

They went on to say:

“We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this.”

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that this is a legitimate way for the Government to behave? They have ignored the costs, which is the real reason why nuclear should come to an end.

I remind the right hon. Gentleman of this statement:

“Nuclear is a tried, tested and failed technology and the government must stop putting time, effort and subsidies into this outdated industry.”

That is a quote with the Secretary of State’s fingerprints indelibly on it, and it was still there on his website this morning. He made another statement:

“Nuclear power is too expensive, too costly and we should not go down that road.”

That was before he was bewitched by the pied piper of nuclear power, when he was free to think and to tell the whole truth before his mouth was bandaged by the seals of his ministerial office. The country needs advice on the way forward and it needs consideration of the full implications, principally the cost that is making nuclear power unaffordable and uninsurable throughout the planet. We are not getting that. We should ask the Government to do their full job and present us with a report that is comprehensive and full.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but the House and the nation now need an answer.

[Chris Huhne]

All I can say is that I am delighted; I could not expect anything less from the hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Gorsedd of Bards: what he lacks in facts, he is able to make up for in poetry and rhetoric. Let me a deal with a couple of his key points.

I believe that the e-mail exchange reported in The Guardian, to which the hon. Gentleman drew attention and quoted, came from an official in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills rather than from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. No, I do not approve at all of the tenor of those remarks; nor are they the tenor of the policy making we conduct in DECC. We are very clear that safety is absolutely the No. 1 concern. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we made a clear provision in the coalition agreement that nuclear power could go ahead, providing that there is no public subsidy and providing investors are prepared to do that. That is exactly what is going on.

I think the hon. Gentleman misinterprets what Dr Weightman said about the issue of costs. The situation is exactly as I said. Dr Weightman could have looked at costs had he wanted to; the reality is that he, quite rightly as the chief nuclear inspector charged with safety, takes the view that safety comes first—regardless of the cost issues. That is why he has come up with a report that does not look into whether the measures he puts forward will or will not have excessive costs. That is for the potential operators to judge, not for Dr Weightman, and the operators will do so.

Let me end my response to the hon. Gentleman by pointing out that a published study, commissioned from Arup, available on the DECC website, puts the costs of nuclear at £71 per megawatt-hour in comparison with the lowest marginal cost at the moment, which would be a gas plant operating at £77 per megawatt-hour. Although he is absolutely right that stringent safety measures might add to costs, the other factor that needs to be taken into account is that precisely because some other countries have not gone through the same process as we have—of assessing the facts and attempting to base our policy on the evidence—they have pulled out of new nuclear construction. The result of that is that demand for new nuclear power stations has fallen. Normally, according to my basic economics, when demand falls and supply stays the same, the price goes down, not up.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Many Members are seeking to catch my eye, but I am afraid that I will be able to call all of them only if we have substantially briefer questions and answers.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

While my constituents in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington will have every sympathy for all those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, they will equally want to be reassured that when they flick the light switch the lights actually come on. Can the Secretary of State therefore reassure them that nothing in this report will make that any less likely than it was before the Fukushima incident?

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[Mr Speaker]

It is always a great pleasure to listen to the Secretary of State, but may I gently remind him of the merits of the abridged rather than the “War and Peace” version?

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Although it is interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) describe the tsunami as a “scandal”, will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State confirm three points? First—this bears repetition—we do not sit atop a seismic fault; secondly, we do not stack five nuclear reactors in a row; and thirdly, we use a different cooling mechanism. Those are three reasons why, although we should not be complacent about our nuclear energy strategy, we should be confident that we have one of the best records in the world.

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[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Lady asks an important and interesting question, because I am determined that on the new nuclear programme we should be as open as we can be about all the considerations. Anybody looking at our past historic nuclear programme would have to be shocked. The hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) has already mentioned the £100 billion cost of potential liabilities. On an ongoing basis, that means that literally 55% of the Department’s budget this year is being spent on nuclear clean-up. Perhaps it should be called not the Department of Energy and Climate Change, but the Department for nuclear and coal clean-up, energy and climate change. That percentage goes up to two thirds next year, so the ministerial team is acutely aware of the importance of ensuring that this never happens again. There are various reasons for that. I would be trespassing on Mr Speaker’s ruling were I to go on at greater length, but I will be giving a lecture on this matter to the Royal Society on Thursday, and we will try to arrange an invitation to that for the hon. Lady.

[Mr Speaker]

The advance notice from the Secretary of State is greatly appreciated, and we thank him for that.

[Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State satisfied that there are no challenges to future nuclear safety caused by a lack of suitably qualified UK engineers?

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[Chris Huhne]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of using less energy. The Government are very proud of the fact that we are four-square behind a real emphasis on saving energy, which is one of the four key supports for our energy policy. That can be seen in the Energy Bill, which I hope is about to receive Royal Assent, and will be seen in the green deal next year. However, I disagree with what he says about nuclear power. Unfortunately, there are no energy sources to speak of without potential risks, downsides and detractors, whether we are talking about gas or coal. A substantial number of people worldwide are still killed mining coal every year—far more than have ever been killed as a result of nuclear energy—and there are substantial environmental consequences in parts of the world that do not apply such high standards for emissions from coal burning as we do in Europe.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Secretary of State and colleagues.