Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

346DG: After Clause 87, insert the following new Clause—
“Nuclear power station development(1) Section 104 of the Planning Act 2008 (decisions in cases where national policy statement has effect) is amended as set out in subsections (2) to (4).(2) In subsection (2), insert at the beginning “Subject to subsection (3A)”.(3) In subsection (3), for “(4)” substitute “(3A)”.(4) After subsection (3) insert—“(3A) Subsection (2)(a) to (c) does not apply, and this subsection applies, in the case of an application for an order granting development consent for a nuclear-powered generating station with a proposed nameplate capacity of 500MW or higher, if and to the extent that the Secretary of State considers it is necessary and appropriate to disregard any provision of—(a) the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017,(b) the Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, or(c) any environmental delivery plan made under the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025,to secure the provision of the generating station in an economic, efficient, proportionate and timely manner.”.(5) By the end of the period of six months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must make regulations to amend the Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 to provide for a bespoke regime for the environmental impact assessment of any proposal for an order granting development consent for a nuclear-powered generating station with a proposed nameplate capacity of 500MW or higher. (6) Regulations made pursuant to subsection (5) must make provision for—(a) a page limit for environmental statements, not exceeding 1,000 pages for the main body of the statement and a total of 4,000 pages for any appendices, and(b) any person or body consulted on an environmental impact assessment to respond to the consultation within 21 days.”Member’s explanatory statement
This clause makes special provision in relation to large-scale nuclear power station developments by allowing the Secretary of State, when determining an application for a Development Consent Order, to disregard regulations relating to environmental impact assessment, habitats regulations assessment, or any environmental delivery plan, if this is considered necessary for the delivery of the nuclear power station. It also requires the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations to put in place a more proportionate environmental impact assessment regime for proposed nuclear power station development.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Offord of Garvel, I shall speak to Amendment 346DG. I should say at the outset that I agree with much of the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in the previous group. This probing amendment continues in a similar vein. It addresses the urgent need to accelerate the delivery of new nuclear power in all its forms in the UK. It is designed with a clear objective: to ensure that our planning system enables, rather than obstructs, the development of the energy infrastructure that this country so desperately needs.

British-built plants cost far more per kilowatt than those of our competitors—six times more than in South Korea. Both France and Finland deliver the same EPR design for far less per kilowatt, at 27% and 53% respectively. These costs are driven by many factors, including slow, resource-intensive consultations relating to planning and permitting, and an 80,000-page environmental impact assessment driving overspecification on environmental and safety grounds. We need the process to become much more efficient.

Amendment 346DG would allow the Secretary of State, when determining an application for a DCO, to disregard regulations relating to environmental impact assessment, habitats regulations assessment or any environmental delivery plan if it is considered necessary for the delivery of a nuclear power station. It also requires the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations to put in place a more proportionate environmental impact assessment regime for a proposed nuclear power station development. This would put an end to the practice of blocking or delaying vital national infrastructure on environmental grounds alone and ensure that we cannot be held hostage to a system that prizes paperwork over progress and process over power generation.

The need for energy security is no longer a theoretical debate. It is a strategic imperative. We are presiding over the highest offshore wind auction prices in a decade, demand for electricity is rising rapidly and the UK is still overly reliant on imported energy sources. The last nuclear power station to come online in this country was in 1995. Hinkley Point C, the only one under construction, is now set to become the most expensive power station in history, not because the technology is flawed—far from it—but because of bureaucracy. We have witnessed the absurdity of eight years of negotiations to install 288 underwater loudspeakers—the infamous fish disco—to deter a trawler’s worth of fish from swimming into the water intake system. This amendment would put an end to that: no more paperwork that chokes innovation and pushes up costs, but rather a more proportionate environmental impact assessment regime that will give a level playing field to the UK nuclear industry.

We must be clear: nuclear is safe, is low-carbon and has the smallest land footprint of any energy source. Dr John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation estimates that wind and solar require up to 3,000 times more land to produce the same amount of power as nuclear. This matters—as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, agrees. We are a small island. In some regions, solar farm applications already cover up to 8% of available land, and the Government’s plan will require even more. Their decision to scrap our 24 gigawatt nuclear target—

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I do not recognise the figure of 8%.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I did not say overall; I said in some regions.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We have had figures bandied around about solar. The total figure covered at the moment is 0.1%, and the total figure for the energy plan, which goes up to 2030, is 0.8%.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

And I repeat: it is 8% in some regions—not in all regions, and not the overall figure for the United Kingdom land space.

The Secretary of State’s need for wind and solar seems to have blinded him to the mounting costs and spatial limitations they could impose. A 24/7 digital economy, data centres and artificial intelligence are not served by intermittent power. They need reliable baseload, and that means nuclear. France, Finland and Sweden—nations with some of the cheapest, cleanest electricity in Europe—all rely on nuclear. The truth is this: nuclear is not the problem; our system is. As we embrace more advanced nuclear technologies, we must try and fix it now in this Bill.

The current regulatory regime puts documentation above the national interest. It pretends that a legal checkbox exercise is the same as protecting the environment. It is not. By making it near impossible to build a handful of nuclear stations on tightly controlled sites, we are instead forcing ourselves to cover more of the countryside with wind turbines and solar panels. Of course, we all care deeply about the environment. Our national love of the countryside and of our natural heritage runs deep. But a planning system that blocks low-carbon, low-footprint, clean energy is self-defeating. It turns environmental regulation into a tool of environmental harm.

Cheap abundant nuclear is not a fantasy; it is our route to energy sovereignty, to lower bills and to powering a modern, prosperous Britain. If we are serious about delivering the infrastructure that will enable growth, attract investment, support heavy industry and safeguard our national interest, then we need to be bold enough to cut through the red tape that is holding us back. Britain stands on the cusp of a new industrial renaissance, but we cannot reach it with the planning system stuck in the past—particularly as we embrace the new, small and advanced nuclear technologies. These amendments are a crucial step towards a future that is energy secure.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment and make a plea for a simplified environmental audit for small modular nuclear reactors. I have in my hand here the speech I delivered on 22 October 2015 in the Grand Committee, aiding and supporting my noble friend Viscount Ridley on small modular nuclear reactors. The debate was supported by everyone in that Committee.

The Environment Minister said that she was totally in support of small modular nuclear reactors and that the technology was coming along rapidly and had to be followed through. We were then told that DECC, the Department for Environment and Climate Change, was carrying out a technical study which would inform the development of small modular nuclear reactors, which would conclude in 2016.

What has happened since then? Absolutely nothing—until in June this year the Government gave Rolls-Royce the go-ahead. Rolls-Royce was gagging at the bit in 2015 to crack on with this. I am afraid the last Conservative Government dithered on small modular nuclear reactors, just as Tony Blair's Government dithered on building Hinkley Point, which was initially costed at €3.3 billion. Then it went to £5 billion, £10 billion, £18 billion and £24 billion. I do not know what it is now—£30 billion or £40 billion.

Small modular nuclear reactors are clean energy. They can be positioned around the country, avoiding the need for huge cabling and pylons. As I say, Rolls-Royce was gagging at the bit and has now got approval to go ahead. Rolls-Royce has been building small modular nuclear reactors for 70 years, perfectly safely. They are in nuclear submarines. Of course, there is a difference between the nuclear engine one has in a submarine and the land-based modular nuclear reactor. But the science is not worlds apart. It is like a car company able to build a petrol engine, then told to build a diesel engine. Yes, some of the components are different and the construction is different, but the concept is the same. It is not rocket science.

I was concerned to read the other day that the wonderful visit of President Trump may involve a deal to get American small modular nuclear reactors. Well, I say to the Government, as we have got Rolls-Royce able to make these things and ready to crack on with them, the people of this country will not understand if we get ones dumped from Westinghouse or GE Hitachi from the United States. At the moment, British industry has a head start. Let us make sure we keep that head start by not putting in excessive regulation—which the Americans might not be required to have—nor planning applications which could take years and years to put a small, safe, modular nuclear reactor outside some of our cities.

That is why we need a simplified environmental audit plan for the positioning of our modular nuclear reactors and then we can crack on and get the cheap, clean power we need. The wind farms are not overexpensive, but the government subsidy is now ridiculously high. No wonder everyone wants to build wind farms—it is money for old rope, considering the subsidy the Government give them. We will not need as many of those, and we will not need pylons all over the countryside. I urge the Government to consider not just my noble friend’s amendment but the possibility of a simplified system for small modular nuclear reactors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not get drawn into the geopolitical issues of international trade on the planning Bill, but I will address the points in the amendment.

The Government shares the ambition of the noble Lord, Lord Offord, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, who moved his amendment, to make nuclear development faster and more cost effective, and the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for SMRs. My noble friend Lady Hayman mentioned AMRs as well, which are important. Quite simply, we cannot grow the economy in the way that we want to without rapidly tackling the clean energy issue on all fronts, including nuclear. That is about not only clean energy but providing us with energy security and lower energy prices, which will help not only businesses in our country but households as well. It is important that we get on with that.

I fear that the solutions proposed in this amendment—I appreciate that it is a probing amendment—would potentially invite problems of their own, and risk undoing the growth we have seen in public support for new nuclear. I look first at allowing the Secretary of State to disregard environmental impact assessment requirements, where doing so would

“secure the provision of the generating station in an economic, efficient, proportionate and timely manner”.

We should remember that environmental assessments include not just impacts on wildlife but also take account of the impact on communities—noise, air quality, human health, and so on.

An application for a new nuclear power station will include proposals for mitigation measures designed to limit or remove any significant adverse environmental effects that it would have. This amendment could remove any requirements for those mitigation measures, which simply means that the significant impacts would not be managed. Like the noble Lord, we recognise that environmental assessment is in need of reform, which is why we are already carefully considering how to bring forward environmental outcome reports that will allow us to ensure that EIA is proportionate and to reduce the risk that these assessments are used to unduly delay development coming forward.

Allowing the Secretary of State to exempt nuclear power station projects both from the habs regulations and from any requirement to pay into an EDP could leave our most important protected sites and species at risk of irreparable harm. Simply providing for these regulations to be disregarded is probably the wrong approach and risks removing the need for even the most common-sense consideration of environmental impacts and actions to address these.

As I hope I have already set out to noble Lords in these debates, the nature restoration fund will allow developers to discharge their environmental obligations around protected sites and species more quickly and with greater impact, accelerating the delivery of infrastructure at the same time as improving the environment.

The planning regime must support new nuclear, so we have introduced a transformative draft national policy statement on nuclear energy. It is important, therefore, that both this policy statement and the overarching national policy statement for energy are considered when deciding applications for new nuclear power stations. This amendment would remove the centrality of these national policy statements in determining applications for those power stations, which would only slow down and confuse the decision-making process. The habitats regulations must be applied sensibly, which is why the overarching national policy statement for energy has already introduced the concept of critical national priority projects. This creates a presumption that the importance of low-carbon energy infrastructure is such that it is capable of amounting to imperative reasons for overriding public interest. We recognise that we need to go further and the nuclear regulatory framework—my noble friend Lord Hunt, referred to it, I believe—must avoid increasing costs where possible. We have therefore launched the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, which will report later this year.

The Government remain firmly of the view that, when it comes to development and the environment, we can do better than the status quo, which too often sees both infrastructure delivery and nature recovery stall. I hope that, with this explanation, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Offord of Garvel, will be able to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her considered and rather encouraging response, and indeed all noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions to this debate. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for reminding the Committee about the exciting progress towards regulatory alignment between the US and the UK on nuclear matters. I join him in encouraging the Government to investigate bringing forward helpful legislative changes on Report in the light of recent research. For now, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 346DG withdrawn.