---

Revised Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation, volumes I and II (EN-6)

My Lords, I am pleased to open this debate on the revised draft national policy statement for nuclear power generation. National policy statements are key documents with which the Infrastructure Planning Commission, and later the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit, will determine applications for development consents. In conjunction with the overarching national policy statement, the revised draft nuclear national policy statement will offer guidance on how to assess potential impacts of new nuclear power stations. Associated major transmission lines would be assessed using the electricity networks national policy statement, which was part of our discussion on 11 January. The revised draft nuclear national policy statement will finish consultation on 24 January. It has been through some changes since noble Lords last considered it in this Committee in March last year. I will highlight some that may be of interest. In the revised draft nuclear national policy statement, eight sites that the Government consider potentially suitable for new nuclear power stations are identified. This has changed from the original draft, which listed 10 sites. After lengthy consideration of all consultation responses, the sites at Kirksanton and Braystones in Cumbria were deemed unsuitable. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, was concerned about the cumulative effect of these sites on Cumbria. They were in fact removed due to concerns over the visual impact on the Lake District National Park and deployability by the Government's target date of 2025. The noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, was concerned about the potential for extremely tall natural draft cooling towers at Oldbury in south Gloucestershire. We have altered the overarching national policy statement to ensure that applications for natural draft cooling towers can be brought forward only when the much shorter hybrid mechanical towers are not reasonably practicable. This greatly reduces the likelihood of 200-metre-high cooling towers coming forward. A number of points were also made regarding Dungeness, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. After very careful consideration of the evidence received in the consultation and points made during parliamentary scrutiny, Dungeness remains off the nuclear national policy statement due to concerns about the adverse effect that the site could have on the Dungeness special area of conservation, an ecological site that is protected by European legislation. In Committee last March, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was concerned that, in setting out the Government's conclusions on the potential suitability of sites, the national policy statement left the Infrastructure Planning Commission unable to refuse an application. We have clarified that this is not the case and, further, that the imperative reasons of overriding public interest that are a requirement of the European habitats directive, and set out within the national policy statement, are ones that the Government have considered in putting sites on the list, not reasons to force through an application for development consent. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, asked us to clarify how sites that were not on the list would be treated, which we have done in the new draft. The national policy statement does not prohibit such an application coming forward; it would be considered by the Infrastructure Planning Commission or its successor and decided by the Secretary of State. However, those sites that are on the list have the clear advantages that scrutiny, consultation and engagement have so far brought.