Civil Nuclear Road Map Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
Lord Birt
Main Page: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Birt's debates with the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
(4Â months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point, but the attraction of using a similar design is that many of the teething problems that have been undergone at Hinkley will hopefully be solved by the time we get to a decision on Sizewell. As I said, my noble friend makes a valid point and, again, it is not a question of either/or. We will continue the development of SMRs and AMRs in conjunction with large-scale nuclear.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s Statement on their long-term nuclear policy. It is and it should be a critical component of our strategy for achieving net zero. However, I want constructively to raise some points. I worked at No. 10 in 2004 when the decision was made in principle to give the go-ahead to a new nuclear plant, which of course became Hinkley Point C. It has become a 25-year project. This is a genuine question: what lessons does the Minister think the UK can learn about how we manage these ambitious long-term infrastructure projects? Did we set out to fund it in the right way?