National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation

Lord Ravensdale Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis in the nuclear industry. I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean. It is great to hear that, like me and the Minister, she comes from the Midlands—and I will come on to the Midlands shortly in my remarks.

I thank the Minister for bringing forward this draft EN-7 policy statement for debate. It is great that we have the opportunity to review it in Parliament, and it is something that I very much welcome: a more flexible approach to nuclear siting is essential to maximise the benefits of new nuclear. In addition to the reasons that the Minister brought out, it enables more areas of the country to benefit from the skilled, well-paid jobs that result from nuclear. It is very important that those benefits are spread around the country.

One of the reasons I am so excited about EN-7 comes from some work that I do chairing an organisation called Midlands Nuclear. This is a partnership between business, local government and academia that has been set up to maximise the benefits to the Midlands region of the nuclear renaissance. We have a fantastic arc of nuclear capability across the Midlands, which goes from Derby, where we have the Rolls-Royce submarines business manufacturing nuclear steam raising plants for Royal Navy submarines, to nuclear component manufacturing and now the STEP fusion plant, which is being built at West Burton in north Nottinghamshire. But what we do not have in the Midlands are any operating nuclear reactors, and I hope that EN-7 will begin to change that.

When we started Midlands Nuclear, we asked the board to focus on some initial areas of study. A clear front-runner was siting: where in the Midlands we could locate new nuclear power stations. The Midlands has a rich heritage in energy generation—Megawatt Valley was the name for a chain of coal power stations running along the Trent—and we want to bring back that focus on energy for the region.

We commissioned a study with industry, which is due to report in the coming months. Using the EN-7 criteria, we selected a shortlist of 21 sites across the region. Of those, two sites then underwent a further, more detailed evaluation—a really specific look at detailed site options.

This is a really ground-breaking study that looks at the practical implementation of the flexible siting policy enabled by EN-7. I am very proud that the Midlands is the first region to explore these opportunities in detail. There could be some really good collaboration between the teams looking at the practical impact of EN-7 for potential sites in the Midlands and the Minister and his officials. Will the Minister perhaps meet Midlands Nuclear so that we can present the study findings and considerations to his team and assist in that further policy development?

One key area to consider from the study is the importance of community support. Something that the Government need to consider more broadly alongside EN-7 is the strategy for bringing communities on board with new nuclear sites, particularly for areas such as the Midlands that do not have that nuclear heritage and history of nuclear reactor siting. I would be grateful if the Minister could say how the Government will progress with ensuring that communities are brought along on the journey to support new nuclear developments.

I have a few more specific comments on the draft EN-7. Alongside community consent, the Minister mentioned the SSEP, the strategic spatial energy plan, in his opening remarks. There is a risk, I believe, that the SSEP takes the more traditional view to nuclear siting in line with the specific sites in EN-6. How are the Government ensuring that the SSEP is not limited by that thinking and is taking EN-7 on board and ensuring that those two areas of policy are joined up?

It is a minor clarification, but can the Minister also clarify whether the 50-megawatt threshold that he mentioned for nuclear projects to be brought within the NSIP regime refers to projects or sites? For example, if a site consisted of a number of reactors under 50 megawatts electric that added up to more than 50 megawatts of capacity, would that be inside or outside the NSIP regime?

An additional area of policy that the Government need to carefully consider alongside the opportunities of EN-7 is ensuring that the regulatory regime—specifically the thorny areas of judicial review and environmental regulation—support the building of new nuclear power stations. We could be in a situation where EN-7 opens up new site options but, unless lessons learned from current nuclear builds are brought in, the aspirations of the Government in terms of build rate simply will not be met. That is why it is so important that, as the Minister referred to, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill delivers.

There are some doubts emerging about the Government’s proposed approach of environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration fund. I am confident that it will deliver for housing developments and nutrient neutrality, for example, but if we look at specific projects, such as nuclear projects, there are doubts as to whether the approach of environmental delivery plans will really unblock the system. Some habitats issues will be known in advance and an environmental delivery plan could be agreed for those, but as work progresses on the site, further habitats issues could be uncovered, which of course would not be within the environmental delivery plan or the nature restoration fund. Also, the developer does not know whether an EDP will be agreed at the outset, so it may be that a twin-track approach will have to be pursued for those habitats issues that come up during the build. There is risk with those habitats regulations that I think needs further consideration by the Government. I will certainly come back to this later in the month when that Bill comes before the House, but I hope that the Government will seize the opportunity that the Bill presents to unblock large clean energy infrastructure. There are three interlocking areas of policy here—the EN-7, the SSEP and wider planning reforms—that need to be considered alongside each other to ensure success.

Finally, one of the key benefits of EN-7 is that it will start to enable the benefits of advanced modular reactors in providing industrial heat, data centre power and fuels production. A lot of progress has been made in recent years, with both large gigawatt-scale reactors and small modular reactors, but the Government now need to look to the future and get behind a clear strategy for AMRs and all the benefits they will provide. Two broad approaches could be taken here by the Government: they could either buy an AMR product off the shelf, as a number of those projects are ongoing, or develop a UK advanced modular reactor, using all our heritage, skills and supply chains to do so.

Because we took the decision, many years ago, to go down the advanced gas-cooled reactor route, while the rest of the world went down the pressurised water reactor route, we have developed a unique skill set in high-temperature reactors and materials, including graphite, that no one else in the world has. We have that supply chain and expertise, and we should make the most of them, because we will otherwise lose them as the advanced gas-cooled reactor programme winds down in the coming years.

There is a real opportunity here for the Government to get behind a UK programme and UK supply chains, leveraging our unique skills and experience as a country. As we are doing with UK SMR, we need to get the first-mover advantage and seize all the export opportunities on offer, while aligning with the ongoing HALEU fuels work. Can the Minister say what plans there are to progress the AMR programme to subsequent phases and to develop a clear strategy for the future direction of AMRs in the UK? How will we seize those opportunities as a country?

In conclusion, I look forward to further collaboration with the Minister and his team to unlock all the benefits that we have discussed for a more flexible siting policy and a future where many more communities across the UK can access the benefits of the stable, clean, secure energy that nuclear represents.