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By Lord Hunt of Kings Heath - 1st June 2010
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his oral question on government proposals for nuclear power.
Nowhere are the tensions in the new governing coalition more real than in their attitude to nuclear power generation in the UK.
Whilst the Conservatives' last election manifesto committed to new nuclear power stations, the Liberal Democrats rejected them out of hand.
Essentially they have agreed to disagree! The deal hammered out allows the Liberal Democrats to continue to oppose nuclear power whilst leaving the government clear to bring forward the energy national policy statement (NPS) for ratification by Parliament.
Bizarrely, the government will put the NPS before Parliament – the Liberal Democrat spokesperson will speak against and Liberal Democrat MPs will abstain. So three positions from within the same coalition!
Such stitch-ups have a habit of coming a cropper. And the worry is that companies who were gearing up to invest billions of pounds in the UK may be wary because of the uncertainties of government policy.
Not only has Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, personally opposed nuclear power, but the government has decided to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC). This was created by the previous government to take major planning decisions. Now decisions will be firmly back in the ministerial in-tray, with all the uncertainty and delays that will bring - the very reason we set up the IPC in the first place.
Alongside this is the fear that the loan given by the Labour government to Sheffield Forgemasters is in jeopardy. The company has a world class capability in the nuclear supply chain. The £80m loan would have helped build a huge new forging press to meet worldwide demand for scarce components. This would have placed Forgemasters and the UK nuclear industry in a strong international competitive position.
The renaissance in nuclear power in the UK could generate thousands of high-quality jobs and provide a vital source of low-carbon energy. It must not be put at risk.
Philip Hunt, opposition spokesman on energy and deputy leader of the opposition in the House of Lords.
Article Comments
While some of what Philip Hunt says is self-evidently true, such as the Lib-Con coalition has a completely untenable pro-anti nuclear power policy rolled into one, much of what the says repeats the self-serving pandering to the nuclear industry, which is totally uneconomic unless vast amounts of taxpayers' money is poured into its coffers to buttress and old fashioned and discredited way of producing barely 4% of delivered energy in the UK, which is why New Labour's policy was so flawed.
For example, Lord Mandelson's misguided decision to direct a so-called "£80,000,000 loan" to Sheffield Forgemasters, so that private company could re-tool to make forging for new nuclear plants.
Other covert and overt nuclear subsidies from the hard pressed taxpayers include the multi-billion pound underwriting of insurance liabilities, the research and development for long-term nuclear waste management and facility decommissioning, the donations made to international nuclear research and promotional bodies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, the EU's Euratom nuclear agency, and to national bodies including the National Nuclear Laboratory, the Nuclear Academy and the Nuclear Institute, and, were the Tories to perversely prevail in the coalition and press ahead with Labour's failed policies, massive loan guarantees will be sought by companies planning to build new nuclear plants, to underwrite otherwise economically untenable power sector developments.
Bizarrely, the nuclear industry claims it does not have or want any subsidies.
Dr David Lowry
2nd Jun 2010 at 12:03 pm
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd
peter russell
3rd Jun 2010 at 3:11 pm