Great British Energy Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 7 in the name of my noble friend Lord Offord, to which I have added my name. This modest amendment merely asks the Government to insert

“the production of nuclear energy”

at the end of Clause 3, page 2, line 18. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Trenchard, who sadly is unable to be in his place today, for his Amendments 10, 33 and 36, which all focus on the nuclear sector.

The Minister for nuclear will not be surprised that I bring this back on Report. He will understand that we merely wish to ensure that nuclear energy plays its full role in our energy mix; putting it on the face of the Bill signifies the Government’s intention that it should do so. I will not repeat the arguments in full that I made at Second Reading. The Government have already acknowledged the importance of nuclear in various speeches at Nuclear Week in Parliament, and the recent announcement that the nuclear national policy statement, EN-7, is to be updated is very welcome.

By accepting this amendment, the Government can bridge the gap between their stated aspiration and its implementation. It will also send a strong signal to investors, developers and the broader energy sector that the UK is serious in its ambitions for nuclear. While we can sadly no longer aspire to claim a world first in the development of new nuclear technologies—Canada has already claimed that crown—it is not too late to be building domestic supply chains and a home-grown industry that will contribute to our own energy security. At the same time, one must of course recognise the potential for creating good-quality jobs and careers in areas such as north Wales that need them most.

Of course, the relationship between Great British Energy and Great British Nuclear remains the big unknown. If properly resourced, GBN could have been uniquely positioned to co-ordinate and drive nuclear developments across the country. It still can. It was created 18 months ago and the small modular reactor drawdown was launched in October 2023. We await the outcome of that competition and I hope that the Government will pick up the pace.

Finally, noble Lords have been silent about the equally important relationship between Great British Energy and UK Industrial Fusion Solutions or the International Atomic Energy Agency. While the STEP project at West Burton will not help the Government towards their 2030 ambitions, in the long term fusion remains the holy grail and is one sector where the UK really does lead the world. I ask the Minister to give the House a clear assurance that Great British Energy will have a role in developing our nuclear energy capability.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 10 is a minor amendment and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, has asked me to speak on it in his absence. I believe his amendment evinces frustration at the tendency of those who are averse to nuclear energy to exclude it from their definition of “clean energy”. He has therefore proposed that the Bill should state that clean energy means renewable energy, nuclear energy and energy produced from sources other than fossil fuels.

In assessing the hazards of nuclear energy, one must separate the issues of nuclear cleanliness, by which I mean the absence of nuclear pollution, from issues of nuclear safety. The latter range from concerns about the accidental spillage of radioactive materials to the risks of rare occurrences such as the accidents of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

A degree of laxity characterised the early nuclear industry, but the industry has since developed a stringent attitude towards cleanliness. The radioactive emissions of our nuclear power stations are negligible. They are a fraction of the emissions from the granite rocks of Aberdeen, and the human exposure is far less than that of a high-flying airline passenger on a scheduled flight. The industry’s attitude to cleanliness extends far beyond the question of radioactive contamination; I have seen the senior management of a nuclear power station become apoplectic at the discovery of a cigarette butt embedded in a gravel pathway.

The major accidents that I mentioned were occasioned by the meltdown of nuclear power stations embodying pressurised water reactors. They have led to a heightened emphasis on the safety of such power stations. That is evident in the design of the Hinkley C power station, where the consequences of the worst imaginable malfunctions would not extend beyond the power station itself. The same is true of the current designs of small modular reactors, which are also pressurised water reactors.

The SMRs employ a nuclear technology that is set to be replaced by fourth-generation technologies endowed with passive safety. A molten-salt reactor provides an example: in the unlikely event of a rupture of the containment vessel, the molten salt and the nuclear reagents would escape into wider containment, after which the nuclear reaction would cease and the salt would crystallise at 300 degrees Centigrade. Such reactors are fit to be employed close to industrial processes that require abundant heat and electricity. An unfortunate fact, to which I must testify, is that we are failing to support the development of such reactors. We are leaving it to others to develop the technologies that are vital for achieving our net zero ambitions.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 10 as well, because the future of nuclear is very important if we are going to lead to a much cleaner environment in which to live. It is an important source of power generation that does not emit filth, like so many of the others do.

I shall pick up on the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, about Drax. I have a slight problem with Drax because, although it makes out that it is using renewable fuel, it seems to be cutting down quite a lot of trees in North America to feed it, and the stuff that comes out of the chimney is highly polluting. The fact that it is not as polluting as coal does not mean it is not polluting at all.

We have to look very closely indeed at the use of some renewables—I am not including solar and wind here. I mentioned in Committee that we are growing oil-seed rape to turn into vegetable oil that then gets refined and put into aircraft, but all the way through that process we are emitting CO₂ and that is what we are supposed to be combating. Drax is emitting CO₂ as well.