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Energy Bill

I understand the point that the noble Lord is making, but there are only two major problems to be resolved—I say that to be simplistic—to which the amendment is addressed. One is the disposal of waste, which is not a localised problem for anyone who lives in the area until we know how that localised waste is to be dealt with. We cannot say whether anyone would have anxieties about where they live, except when they will need assurances about the site to be developed for the disposal of nuclear waste—the guarantee that the process will be entirely safe. As the noble Lord will recognise, the decommissioning of power stations is an ongoing programme. By 2035, we will have decommissioned all the power stations built in the 20th century. This is an ongoing problem. Over the next 10 years, all but one of the existing nuclear power stations will be shut down, but we have not yet shut any down completely; they are shut down, but they are not yet fully decommissioned. Over the next 25 years, and in the years since the process has been begun, we are seeing and will see the decommissioning of the nuclear power stations built in the 20th century. They raise all sorts of issues of cost and safety, but not safety in terms of the locality. I do not think that anxiety is expressed about the decommissioning process. The noble Lord may want to contradict me on that, but I merely say to him that there would be no question of new nuclear build if we were not entirely confident of the fact that we can decommission the 25 stations that we must by 2035 because their useful life is over.