National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation

Earl Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Grand Committee

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne. My university career was spent studying nuclear strategy, so I welcome the work that the Nuclear Threat Initiative has done. It has also been fascinating to learn that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, studied nuclear engineering. What expertise we have with former Energy Ministers around the Room.

I also very much welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, to the House of Lords. She talked about pinching herself—I have been here for two years, and I can say that it is worse after you have had a holiday. I congratulate and welcome her, and I know that she will make a valuable contribution to the House, as she did as an MP in fighting for her constituents.

I thank the Minister for bringing forward this debate. I apologise in advance that I will put several general questions to him, but I do not expect answers to everything that I raise today. I welcome this national policy statement on nuclear EN-7. Much of it is about SMRs and AMRs and about the energy we need—predominately for AI and data centres in the future. Indeed, if there is no energy, there is no AI. The alternative to small modular reactors is that they will turn to gas-powered turbines, which would be an absolute disaster for our net-zero ambitions.

This Government are clearly serious about taking this forward, which I welcome. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, remined us, the UK is in a global competition, and, as other Members have said, time is short, even though these things are happening at pace. Personally, I well recognise the need for nuclear energy as part of our energy mix, particularly for baseload power. I also recognise the role that SMRs can play for data centres and the harder-to-abate industries. This is obviously a moving space. If we were making counter arguments, we could say that the cost of renewables continues to go down and, as yet, we do not have a commercially operating SMR—we have many in development but not one in place already. However, I welcome this development, and I welcome nuclear as part of our energy mix to meet our net-zero goals.

EN-7 is about modernising our planning processes to make sure that they work, deploying projects after 2025 and ensuring longer-term planning. Can the Minister explain how EN-7 will be integrated with the energy spatial plans, when they are ready, and how they will fit together? EN-7 is designed to be more flexible and—as many noble Lords have said—it needs to be so in order to incorporate the new technologies. It is broader in scope, and it will enable site selection to be done by the developers themselves, whereas previously it was done by the Government—let us hope that that will speed up things. It will be done on a “first ready, first served” framework, once developers pass through a series of checkpoints.

EN-7 will supersede EN-6, but EN-6 will not be withdrawn and remains a material consideration. The removal of time limits and the focus on criteria-based selection aim to open up more sites. Generally, we welcome this policy, as I said. We welcome that the Government are taking it seriously and bringing forward new policies and plans to implement these new technologies and make this happen. The Government’s policy is better developed on SMRs than it is on AMRs—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, made quite strongly. Picking that up, what further work will the Government do to progress the AMR side of things?

Previously, before this policy, this country had only eight sites licensed for nuclear power. As we move to SMRs, we are moving to a completely different system where any site can potentially have small modular reactors if it meets the appropriate criteria. We need to acknowledge, in this Room and on the record, that this is a huge and fundamental change. I will come on to that later, but these are big and important changes.

The Government’s press release talked about slashing red tape,

“ripping up archaic rules and saying no to the NIMBYs”.

That is a bit unhelpful. We have new technologies and planning processes, and it is important that the Government take the time to explain, consult and provide reassurance. As we have a whole new system, with new nuclear power plants, we need a new way to assess the risks that this changed system brings with it. That is important, too.

My understanding is that SMRs are happening and should be going to tender by next March, which is welcome. Can the Minister confirm that it is still the Government’s plan to tender for two SMRs?

I wish to pick up some of the concerns from the consultation. Waste was one of them: the management of radiological waste and spent nuclear fuel and putting that in the context of the fact that we still lack a geological disposal facility. Depending on what design is chosen, it is possible that we will continue to generate waste from even small modular reactors. How will these challenges be met? How will this fit with the need for the geological disposal sites that are not ready? There will be allowance for interim storage. How will that system work? What do the Government mean by “interim” in that context? What general timeline are the Government working to for the GDF?

Who bears the cost here? Small modular reactors, in particular, could be from one commercial company providing energy. Where does the cost of the processing and long-term storage of waste sit? Does it sit with the state or with the company? These are fundamentally different, in that they are providing power to a company. Will the Government update EN-3 in relation to waste for SMRs and AMRs? Is that planned? I am not certain.

I turn to the site selection criteria. The semi-urban population density criteria remain, which is absolutely right, but is there a conflict between that and powering data centres? I may be wrong, but my understanding is that most data centres are in fairly urban populations. Do the Government know whether that is a tension? I know that they are thinking about reviewing that. If that policy is reviewed, could the Minister give some reassurance about how that might happen, including the processes, and that there will be some scrutiny around that?

On climate change, which is one of the key criteria that need to be looked at, we are in the middle of—until it started raining today—a dry spring. Water usage is one of those primary concerns, particularly the impact of abstraction on water bodies.

There is also the security of these sites. The Office of Nuclear Regulation used to provide security for nuclear sites. I think it is still not certain whether it will take up the role with SMRs. Is that still to be decided? How will that work? If there are more sites, more need to be protected. There will also possibly be more nuclear material moving around the country to fuel these sites. Is there a policy coming on that? Is that still to be determined? The response cryptically said that there was not uniformity of views on everything. Are there issues for the Government that come from the consultation? Were there particular areas where the consultation responses picked up issues? Will that be subject to further review?

The need for a skilled workforce has been mentioned. We have not built new nuclear for a while. We have the nuclear skills task force but the words were “careful future management”. The hope is that we can grow our nuclear industry. We have two nuclear engineers in this Room. This is important much needed jobs and skills and growing our economy.

The communication bit is important for me. This is new stuff and a change of siting policy. I call on the Government to work with communities and to communicate in more open and co-operative language around these matters—this point has already been raised here—and to provide community benefit where that is possible. It may not be possible in all cases, but providing community energy through waste heat might be an option in some dcases.

Does the Minister see a role for SMRs in helping with grid balancing and providing baseload where we are providing these this energy to data centres? Are there options in terms of stabilising the grid?

My final point, noble Lords will be pleased to know, is around AI and energy. As we transition to net zero, we need at least to double the amount of electricity by 2050, and noble Lords have made the point that that need might be much greater. At the moment, data centres consume 2.5% of our electricity, but that is going to rise to 10% by 2050. Against that background, the general demand for electricity is going to double. There is no doubt that nuclear and the need for data centres will rub up against our need for net zero, and there will be competition for resources, workforce, government time, money and so on. That needs to be looked at. We had a Question to the Minister in the House the other day. There are loads of opportunities for us to make better use of AI to become more energy efficient, run our grid better, run our industry better and use less energy across so many sectors of the country from manufacturing to transport and everything else. While I welcome the creation of the AI Energy Council, I call on the Government, if they are embracing AI and providing energy, to put as much energy into trying to make sure that AI is as energy-efficient and energy-saving to the country as it possibly can be.