Civil Nuclear Road Map

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts
Monday 15th January 2024

(10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Viscount Hanworth Portrait Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
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My Lords, the road map makes frequent reference to high-temperature gas-cooled reactors. An indigenous project to build such a reactor, called U-Battery, was shelved due to a lack of government support. From whom do the Government propose to import such technology—which, by the way, was pioneered in Great Britain? When will the Government give sufficient support to our native industry, which was once pre-eminent in the world?

Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Con)
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The noble Viscount makes an important point. We had one of the most pre-eminent nuclear industries, but that industry was left to die during a number of Governments, particularly starting with the Labour Government in 1997. Now we are on a different page. There are a whole host of different new technologies and processes coming forward in this space, and it is very much the job of Great British Nuclear to guide us in the process of selecting the best technologies to take forward.