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Energy Bill [Lords]

I am seeking to amend new clause 11, which was based on a clause that was withdrawn by the Government in Committee because of cross-party concerns. I have not been fully reassured by what the Minister has said about the new clause, which has not met all those concerns. My amendments therefore seek to ensure that the Secretary of State cannot decide not to exercise his powers to modify a nuclear decommissioning programme; that a nuclear decommissioning programme can be modified only by the Secretary of State on his own, not working with an operator; and that we clarify what is meant by the word ““prudent””. The Minister has helpfully expanded on that term so I feel a little reassured, although I still think that it is a little open. In new clause 17, I am seeking to amend section 48 of the Energy Act 2008 to ensure that a third party to a nuclear decommissioning programme can propose a modification of it without the consent of the site operator. I make it very clear that it is still the Secretary of State alone who can modify it. I am not suggesting that the associate to the operator can do so. I suggest that they should be able to propose a modification, but that it remains the responsibility of the Secretary of State to decide whether or not to go ahead with that. I am also clear that changes should not include a reduction of the requirements. We are not debating the pros and cons of nuclear power per se. The Minister knows very well that I am not a great fan of nuclear power. The debate is about whether the Government should be subsidising, more or less with a blank cheque, a nuclear renaissance in the UK, either directly or indirectly. Ministers know very well that the UK faces a £4 billion black hole in unavoidable nuclear decommissioning and waste costs, which the Secretary of State revealed soon after coming to office last year. At that time, he said the crisis was such that"““my department is not so much the department of energy and climate change, as the department of nuclear legacy and bits of other things””." It was well reported at the time that there would be additional costs from rising expenditure on nuclear decommissioning and falling income due to the closure of ageing power plants. The Secretary of State went on to insist:"““I do not think it is possible for anyone responsibly to stand aside and say we are not going to deal with it. We just have to, but ""what we are effectively paying for here is decades of cheap nuclear electricity for which we have suddenly got a massive postdated bill.””" I could not have put it better myself. What clearer evidence of the long-term subsidy of nuclear power could there be? It is not clear to me how Government new clause 11 will seriously address this problem. By limiting the Secretary of State's power to place greater responsibility on a nuclear operator to meet the costs of decommissioning its plants, the new clause could even make the situation worse. It is because of the unpredictable nature of nuclear clean-ups and decommissioning that the Secretary of State must retain the option of adding to the liabilities of companies such as EDF, which boldly lobbied Committee members in support of the original clause 102. Of course, the cost of an accident could be even higher than the cost of planned decommissioning. The Financial Times reported in April that Toshiba and GE Hitachi have both submitted proposals to clean up and decommission the Fukushima site on the basis that the process is likely to the cost billions of dollars. The German Government's estimate for a severe accident like the one at Fukushima is €1 trillion. These are unimaginable figures. As a result, there are serious ongoing discussions about the need to raise the EU and UK's nuclear accident liabilities ceiling from €143 million to €1 billion. As one can see, that still falls well short of the total cost. I believe that limiting the Government's power to introduce greater demands on nuclear power companies to cover higher decommissioning requirements could place greater financial burdens on taxpayers and amount to a back-door subsidy for nuclear. The Minister may say that such agreements could still be added under new clause 11. Although that might be technically true, a nuclear operator agreeing to add to its own responsibility for contingency or cost would be a classic case of turkeys voting for Christmas—it would be very unlikely to happen. I tabled my amendments because I want the Secretary of State to retain the power to modify a decommissioning agreement on his or her own, without requiring the agreement of a plant operator. I also want to ensure that a decommissioning agreement can be modified only to ensure that obligations are added, not removed.