Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, when she expects the national Geological Disposal Facility to be ready.

The process to site a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) is planned to launch in 2017 and will be driven by working in partnership with willing communities. The technical work to assess the geological suitability of a site and build a credible long-term safety case is the main determinant of the length of time that it will take. The Government has therefore not set a fixed delivery timetable but the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has a current planning assumption that the GDF will be available to receive the first waste in the 2040s.