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Draft Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy (EN–1)

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not give a precise answer, because I am not in a position to say, for example, ““You reach two or three sites””. He will know that we have said that we reckon that, by 2025, we will need about 25 gigawatts of electricity generation which is low-carbon but non-renewable, and that nuclear developers should be enabled to make applications for consent up to that point. As it is possible for there to be multiple reactors on a particular site, it is not possible for me at this stage to say that, if one comes down to four sites, for example, the imperative reasons of overriding interest can be applied. I shall take the point that the noble Lord has raised and see whether any further advice needs to be given. At this stage, I need to be assured that enough sites for potential development are available which do not hit the problems that we see in relation to Dungeness. I stress to him and other noble Lords that I do not have a closed mind on Dungeness; we are seriously considering those points. Equally, I should not underestimate the real difficulties that we see in relation to Dungeness as a new site. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, was right to raise flood risk and coastal erosion. At this point, therefore, we thought it right not to list Dungeness as being a potentially suitable site when producing the national policy statements. We will listen to the arguments and take into account the recommendation of the Select Committee, but we should not underestimate the problems that arise with Dungeness.