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Energy: Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation (EN-6)

I do not disagree with the noble Lord. Many of us who are both Scottish and British in our political interests know that there are times when you can have a fight and times when you do not need to have one. At the moment, in Scotland, we do not really need to fight. The nonsense that the nationalists tend to speak about generating capability and the wishful thinking relating to renewables is such that they are being found out on every day that passes because all influential Scottish public opinion formers are coming down in support of the nuclear case. There is compelling evidence from communities of the specialist character of the Dounreay facility, of which I know the noble Lord has been such a defender over the years. There will be debates within the IPC process. It is clear that the IPC has a long and intimidating checklist against which the planning applications will have to be assessed. The detail is sufficiently comprehensive and explicit to enable anyone wishing to frustrate the process to seek judicial review. IPC members have made it clear to me in conversations and at meetings that they have been appointed as much for their experience and expertise as their independent minds. These are significant individuals. The chair has a distinguished career in public service—the kind of person who will not be messed about by civil servants and the like, but who will lead teams of well qualified and experienced individuals to look at these issues on their merits. If they do not, and as I said earlier, the weapon of judicial review will delay and frustrate in the way that planning processes in the past have done. I am confident that this process will not only accelerate but assist consideration of the projects. I have flogged this horse previously, but I say to those Members opposite who have ill-disguised opposition to many of the processes of the IPC, not least in the absence of any ministerial involvement, that the supposed independent, cool, political, accountable voice that is heard following a planning inquiry is very often vacillating, delaying and, as Mrs Thatcher would have said, "frit" because of the electoral consequences of unpopular decisions which need to be taken but are inconvenient. The IPC process will enable proper, rigorous scrutiny and avoid unnecessary political delay and embarrassment. I only hope that, as we get closer to the general election, wiser counsels will prevail and we will not hear these outbursts of root-and-branch opposition to the IPC. I can see the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, perhaps rising to my bait, but, before he does so, I would say that he was distinguished by his support for the process as a former Planning Minister and his general backing for the Bill in the past. Whether he has moved I am not sure, but if he wants to ask me a question, I am happy to take it.