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Nuclear Industry

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies). I am also delighted to have the opportunity to debate on a report from the Trade and Industry Committee, which I think is a very balanced and fair report. I will start with a note of agreement with the previous speaker. I think that we have dilly-dallied for far too long and a degree of urgency is now required. There is no better person to demonstrate that to me than James Lovelock. I do not know how many other hon. Members had the opportunity to hear him, but he spoke in this place about a month ago. If one wanted a clearer explanation of why the nuclear option is inevitable, and also wanted to know how to dismiss some of the absolute rubbish that gets put about by those who call themselves members of the green movement—I believe that I myself am a member of the green movement—but have an obsession with finding reasons why we apparently have alternatives to nuclear energy, James Lovelock utterly dismissed their arguments that day, being someone of outstanding repute who, along with Patrick Moore, has become a great advocate of the nuclear industry. They see it as both inevitable and right that we choose to go along the route of at least replacement. There is some misunderstanding and I think we need to stress that nobody is asking for a complete change in our energy provision, so that we go over entirely to the use of nuclear power.