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Energy Policy: Nuclear Power

My Lords, I begin by recording my great appreciation of the warm, friendly welcome that I have received since taking my place in this House from noble Lords in all parts and not least from the staff. It has been most helpful, if a little unnerving on occasion. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, on his excellent introduction to a very important and timely debate, which he has initiated. We are of course old political adversaries from the other place. Nevertheless, I have a high personal regard for him. Despite the occasional rancour and asperity of the political debate, we have always remained good friends. Then, as now, we shared a broad agreement on the essential role of nuclear power in a diverse, balanced energy policy. I might reflect that it is just a little sad, given some of his comments, that this debate is not taking place on 14 February rather than 16 February. It is a debate of huge importance and its importance cannot be underestimated. Future energy policy will directly affect the social and economic well-being of people—of our country, our environment and our security—for decades to come. We face a well defined, imminent energy supply gap converging with increasing demand and the vital importance of more effectively acting against those gaseous emissions driving climate change. These are formidable challenges indeed. There are, and always will be, conflicts between energy demand, emissions reduction, energy price relativities and the market. Such conflicts are not new, nor can they be wished away; so some compromises are not only inevitable but essential. The need urgently to consider options and decide on new policy directions should be clear to everyone. If we are to meet our climate change objectives and the other imperatives of controlling demand where possible, meeting affordability and security of supply, the status quo simply will not do. We are faced by some very hard choices. The movement of gas prices and the doubts about the security of supply are reminiscent of the oil price shocks of the 1970s, though not yet as severe or as threatening. At that time, I had the honour to be an energy Minister in the Administration of the late Lord Callaghan. Policy then was balanced on a mixture of coal, oil, gas and nuclear power. In addition, there was a vigorous energy conservation programme and broad political and industrial consensus about the direction that we should take in these policy areas. At that time, in spite of the difficulties, most of the policy objectives were secured. Today, after years of dispute, I am pleased to say that there is again a growing consensus in favour of renewing a diverse policy in which nuclear power plays a significant part. I believe that we should encourage that trend and help to develop that growing consensus. Of course, much has changed since the 1970s, and the days of energy self-sufficiency are gone, but similar challenges face us now. We have the advantage of greater knowledge of the issues, of better technology and better engineering, and, increasingly, the availability of renewable sources of electricity generation. In addition, we in Britain have demonstrated over many years that we can safely and successfully manage nuclear power and the nuclear industry generally. In 2003, the nuclear industry provided almost 22 per cent of the electricity generated in the United Kingdom, with an average load factor of 76 per cent for the generating stations. This year, 2006, is the 50th anniversary of the advent of civil nuclear power in our country. Calder Hall was commissioned then and we have been safely generating reliable, everyday outputs of nuclear power for 50 years. Some 2 million million kilowatt hours—I am not suffering from a speech impediment; I mean 2 million million kilowatt hours of electricity generation—has taken place in nuclear power stations with a negligible discharge of carbon dioxide. Indeed, that nuclear production has avoided the emission of 1.6 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide over the same period from the fossil fuels which otherwise would have been burnt if the nuclear option had not been available. Yet, at the very moment when fundamental energy and environmental policy decisions must urgently be made, some advocate abandoning a very significant weapon in our industrial armour. To do so would simply be folly. It would disable our economy and our industry at the very time when we should be thinking of strengthening it. It would jeopardise our hopes and aspirations of sustainable development for decades to come. It is clear that elsewhere in the world, nuclear power is seen as an essential part of energy policy. In Japan, China, India, France, Finland and—significantly, especially since the Energy Bill last year of Senator Domenici—in the United States, the commitment to nuclear power is strengthening. I certainly share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that at the very least nuclear power should be given a level playing field, but subsidies are neither sought nor are they required if we are to build new nuclear power stations. My own view, put simply, is that Britain, indeed the world, is not going to get by without nuclear power if we are to achieve sustainable development as one of our fundamental objectives. We can build all the renewable sources we can and take the most aggressive approach to energy efficiency and conservation while trying to manage millions of daily disaggregate demands for electricity—which is what demand is made up of—but those actions will never fill the gap. Indeed, by their very nature many of the renewable sources are interruptible supplies. Of course we should support more R&D on new and emerging technologies such as clean coal technology, and I welcome the Government’s recognition of the need to do that. I also welcome the Government’s production of this review, marking the urgency and fundamental importance of these issues as set out in the paper itself. The approach is refreshing and I wish the Government well.