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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish an updated National Policy Statement for nuclear power to reflect the range of applications envisaged for nuclear technology set out in the Energy White Paper published on 14 December 2020.

We stated in the 2020 Energy White Paper our intention to undertake a review of the energy National Policy Statement (NPS) suite. This review was published for consultation on 6^th September 2021.

This consultation includes the revised overarching National Policy Statement for energy (EN-1). The revised EN-1 sets out that a new technology specific NPS for nuclear electricity generation deployable after 2025 is proposed and will be developed to reflect the changing policy and technology landscape for nuclear and support the transition to net zero. This will be consulted on in the usual manner, in due course.

The revised EN1, also sets out that the need for nuclear could be met by large scale gigawatt nuclear, Small Modular Reactors, Advanced Modular Reactors and fusion technologies.

The publication of this consultation is a first step toward a planning framework to facilitate the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies.