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Energy Bill

I hardly dare venture into this debate. I will try to be as brave as I can. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, for raising this issue and for doing so with her usual courtesy. She was kind enough to write me a note about this. My officials have seen it and I hope that my response will be satisfactory, even if the issue is not satisfactory. Devolved matters are waste disposal, environmental discharges and planning. Reserved matters are safety, electricity generation in the broad sense and nuclear security. It is important to get that straight at the start. Given the energy challenges that we face in the United Kingdom and the role that we believe nuclear power stations should and will play in meeting them, it is of course regrettable that the provisions in this chapter do not apply to Scotland. The UK Government’s position is that should the view of the Scottish Executive towards new nuclear power stations change, we will seek to apply these provisions as soon as possible. But not daring to go into the difficult, not to say dangerous, world of Scottish politics, I have to say that I am not as confident as the noble Baroness that any vote in the Scottish Parliament would necessarily lead to the result that she thinks, because the party that makes up the Executive in Scotland at the moment is not the only party that is opposed to a nuclear future. I have to make that point, although I do not know how it will turn out on the night, as they say. It is established that some aspects of the clauses that we are considering relate to the disposal of radioactive waste, and the disposal of radioactive waste in Scotland is a devolved matter. Therefore, to apply these clauses in Scotland, as the noble Baroness rightly said, would require a legislative consent motion named after my noble friend Lord Sewel. The Scottish Executive have made it clear that, given their opposition towards new nuclear, that consent would not, to put it mildly, be forthcoming. It may have been possible to gain that consent if the UK Government had been willing to dilute the powers in the forthcoming legislation. However, frankly, we are not willing to dilute the robust level of taxpayer protection that these provisions provide just in order to gain that agreement. Furthermore, as the Scottish Executive has made clear again, under devolved powers, any application to build a new nuclear power station in Scotland would require consent from Scottish Ministers under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989. The Scottish Executive is on record as saying that any proposals from the industry to build a new power station would need to be considered on its individual merits. However, the Scottish Executive has also said that it is unlikely that proposals for the industry for new nuclear generation would find favour with the Scottish Government. As I said, should the policy change, we would seek the agreement of the Scottish Parliament to extend this legislation at the earliest opportunity. The noble Baroness should know that we in Government share the same frustration that she and the other speakers in this short debate in Committee made clear.