Small Modular Reactors: Government Funding

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Virginia Crosbie

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I would love to be the one who gifts these locations, and I would be grateful—I am sure the Minister is hearing this—if those five locations then received potential building permissions, but we need first to cut through the red tape that is stuck in the Government. I stress that the problem is not the Department represented here today; it is, I am afraid, the Treasury.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on small modular reactors, I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene in this important debate.

Rolls-Royce SMR has secured funding of £210 million from UK Research and Innovation, and a further £280 million from private investors. We now need to move to the next stage, which is all about deployment. We need to agree with the UK Government on plans for siting and funding. Manufacturing plants have been earmarked for Rolls-Royce SMR across the UK, including Deeside, which will benefit north Wales and my constituents in particular. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the next stage is important because it will unlock more private sector investment and result in new factories and more high-skill jobs in the UK during this Parliament?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I commend her work in chairing the all-party parliamentary group. I hope that her comments will fall on the welcome ears of the Minister, who is soon to get to his feet.

My plea to the Minister is simple. I ask him please to recognise that the scale of the energy crisis we face necessitates a leaning into this project to secure the greater political alignment that would allow funding models to be completed during this Parliament. That is entirely possible.

Europe is once again at war, and it is time for us to move to a warlike footing if we are to reduce our dependence on overseas power sources which are exposed to volatile international prices and, indeed, adversarial interference which we cannot control. We can enjoy greater energy self-sufficiency with cheaper bills by generating cheap, clean, reliable power within our borders. We have the know-how, we have the desire, we have the industrial advantage; I simply ask the Minister for the political will to make it happen.