Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support the development of smaller reactors and the use of fracking for gas in order to strengthen the UK’s self-sufficiency in energy.

The Government is committed to ensuring the UK has a secure and resilient energy system while meeting our climate change obligations and keeping bills as low as possible. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and shale gas have the potential to play a part in achieving this.

The Government has committed to investing at least £250 million over the next five years in nuclear research and development, which will include support for SMRs. In March 2016, the Government launched the first phase of a competition to identify the best value SMR for the UK, as well as allocating up to £30m over the next 5 years for an SMR-enabling advanced manufacturing programme to develop skills capacity.

The Government supports the exploration of our shale gas resources in a safe and sustainable way. The shale gas resources beneath Britain have the potential to bolster our energy security and lead to jobs and economic growth. UK geology is promising but we make no assumptions about production levels. We need exploration to determine the potential.

The Government has been clear that shale development must be safe and environmentally sound.