Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 8 July (HL Deb, col 177–180) concerning the annual cost of £3 billion of storing and protecting the United Kingdom’s civil nuclear legacy, whether they will provide details of such costs; and whether they are taken into account when stating the cost per megawatt hour of electricity from nuclear power stations.

The £3 billion per year figure relates to the management of the UK’s civil nuclear liability and arises from historic and current nuclear operations. Sellafield, the UK’s largest, most complex and challenging site, accounts for £1.9 billion per year of this cost. The best estimate for clean-up costs for the UK’s earliest nuclear sites over a 100 year plus programme is set out in the Nuclear Provision which together with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA) anticipated costs and expenditure, budget and lifetime financials per site, is made publicly available via the NDA’s website (www.nda.gov.uk).

Operators of new nuclear power stations are required by law to make prudent provision for their decommissioning, waste management and waste disposal costs. These costs are taken into account in the cost per MWh of electricity generated by new nuclear power stations.