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

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in this debate from a Cumbria perspective, where I was until November last year the chair of the local economic development body. This statement will be welcomed in Cumbria as a major milestone in what is a long road to building nuclear as an essential part of our energy mix in this country. I should like to be more generous to the coalition than was my noble friend Lord Davies. Things have moved along since the election on the nuclear question, in a positive way. I particularly welcome the fact that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has come out so clearly in favour of nuclear being part of Britain's future energy mix. This is a major step. I draw attention to the huge potential of the nuclear future in west Cumbria, which I got to know extremely well over the past three or four years. Not only is Sellafield the centre of our nuclear clean-up but there is also very big potential at the site for power stations in addition to the one initiative that new generation has started to show an interest in today. The county council believes that there could be more than one new station on the Sellafield site to deal with the needs of nuclear post-2025. There is also the potential for reprocessing. If the Minister could give us some indication of what the Government's timetable is for thinking about decisions on this issue, it would be very helpful to the local community. The communities in Cumbria have expressed an interest in the question of the long-term waste site, which is very important indeed. The point that I want to make on this is a simple one. This is an important planning stage that we have reached on this issue, but many more issues will have to be resolved if we are going to build—