Written question asked by Kim Howells (Labour) on Thursday, 26 February 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 2 March 2009. It was answered by Mike O'Brien (Labour) on Wednesday, 11 March 2009 on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Nuclear Power Stations

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress has been made on generic design assessment work proceeding on the (a) AP100, (b) economic simplified boiling water and (c) UK EPR designs for nuclear reactors; and if he will make a statement.

Answer: I have been asked to reply.The nuclear regulators have completed GDA Steps 1 and 2 for four reactor designs (AECL's ACR1000, Areva's European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR), GE- Hitachi's ESBWR and Toshiba-Westinghouse's API000) and a series of reports were published on the Health and Safety Executive's website in March 2008.ACR-1000 and ESBWR have been, respectively, withdrawn and suspended from the GDA process at the request of the vendors.HSE's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) is currently part-way through step 3 of a four step assessment process. NII aims to publish its step 3 findings in November 2009 and its step 4 findings in June 2011.The Environment Agency (EA) is also part way through its detailed assessment process. EA aim to publicly consult on their initial findings in 2010 and publish their final reports by June 2011.

Secondary information