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Nuclear Industry

That is an absolutely pivotal point. We are talking about two interrelated but separate systems. We need both a national system through the grid, which obviously will be partly, if not wholly, supplied by nuclear in the future, and local solutions. They can be very local. They can be microgeneration at the household level. We are talking about two different systems that need to work together. That is what technology will have to allow us to think through. We have not done that yet. That is for the future and let us talk about the here and now. I will start with the point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed) alluded: some of us are currently subject to a freedom of information inquiry about our interest in the nuclear industry. Like him, I have various bits of correspondence winging their way through my office at the present time. Considering that the three of us on the Back Benches—my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and I—have rather an established reputation for supporting the industry, it is somewhat bizarre that anyone should need to find out what our links with the industry are. If they had the courtesy to write to us, I would tell them clearly that I have been pro-nuclear for at least the last 20 years. I make no apology for that. I do a lot of work with the industry and I am totally transparent about that. Notwithstanding the Bill that is to be debated tomorrow, it is rather a waste of time trying to prove the obvious. But that is by the way. I just say in passing that much of the correspondence relates to a visit by my hon. Friend the Minister to Berkeley that in the end never took place. It is a fascinating study that shows just how obsessed people are in trying to attack through all sorts of means those who have a view on this industry that is sensible and right. But we will not be put off. I have to introduce a slight note of rancour here. I have disagreements with my hon. Friends and with the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford. I have always believed that there is a role for the state not just in terms of the strategy. The industry needs greater state involvement. From the word go the state has played a crucial role in the nuclear industry. At one time it was an almost entirely state-run industry. Indeed, it was born out of state involvement. We sometimes forget that. Because of all the changes that the industry has undergone and the fact that it has been split up so many times, many of us who know the industry still find the picture of who is in bed with whom and who they represent extremely confusing. We still have a fully owned state company in the form of what was BNFL, which reappeared again yesterday even though I thought that it had become BNG. Whatever it is now called, it is still entirely owned by the state. We cannot dismiss that. It is important. One of the problems goes back to the way in which the old Central Electricity Generating Board was divided up, leaving us with the so-called residue in the form of the old BNFL because of the liabilities issue. That was not necessarily done in the right way, but we are where we are. It was never successful because Nuclear Electric then became British Energy; it has hardly had a great financial past. One hopes that it is through the worst and that it comes out the other side. One of the problems with the industry is that whenever we want to look to the future—there are those of us who advocate that there is a future and strongly support it—we are somewhat overcome by events. There is no better example of that than yesterday. It may be somewhat marginal to the industry and the new nuclear build, but it is a story that has not been helpful. As with previous stories about the falsification of data, it may have been greatly exaggerated, but this always stops the nuclear industry from getting a fair wind and building that consensus which needs to be built. I see a strong role for the state. It is fascinating that this Sunday a rather important election is taking place. It is in the country next door and it will have a big impact, not least because that country happens to own a lot of our utilities due to the successful operation of what was EDF and is now, I presume, Areva. I have some difficulties knowing which company it is and who is in bed with whom. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford will put me right.