Great British Energy: Nuclear Development

Question

14:42:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what impact they anticipate reallocating £2.5 billion of Great British Energy’s planned budget for nuclear energy generation development will have on its ability to deliver on its planned objectives.

My Lords, Great British Energy’s mission is to drive clean energy deployment in order to create jobs, boost energy independence and ensure that UK taxpayers, bill payers and communities reap the benefits of clean, secure, homegrown energy. In the spending review, the Government pledged over £2.5 billion for the small modular reactor programme through Great British Energy-Nuclear. This programme will potentially power the equivalent of 3 million homes with clean, secure, homegrown energy. Together, Great British Energy and Great British Energy-Nuclear will invest £8.3 billion in our clean energy future.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. The Treasury cut one-third of Great British Energy’s budget and its investment powers, clipping its wings before it could fly. A renaming sleight of hand does not make Labour’s manifesto pledge add up. The promise to fully capitalise Great British Energy with £8.3 billion in this Parliament has clearly been broken. I ask the Minister either to confirm which third of GB Energy’s mission will be scrapped or to give a clear commitment to replace these essential funds, which have been taken away by the Treasury.

I thank the noble Earl for that question but I do not think that the Great British Energy budget has been cut. The £8.3 billion will be spent between the two allied companies. The small modular reactors programme, if we get a fleet of them, will generate enough energy for over 3 million homes and create thousands of jobs. In April, Great British Energy announced £3 million for offshore wind supply chains. In June, we announced another £700 million investment in clean energy supply chains. We are doing everything that we possibly can with this money, and it acts as a catalyst for future investment. All sides of the House welcome the money that we are putting into small modular reactors.

My Lords, my noble friend mentioned small modular nuclear reactors, in which the UK clearly has an advantage in terms of technology. How can he ensure that jobs in the UK economy will be underpinned by that programme? Will it encourage young people to get into the nuclear field?

It is vital that we invest in nuclear. It will add to the baseload for electricity generation into the future. We want to see young people attracted into the industry, and growth in apprenticeships. We also want the supply chains to be focused not just in one area but around the country, in regions such as mine and my noble friend’s in the north-east of England.

My Lords, I declare my interest as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis. I congratulate the Government on the Sizewell C announcement, which is fantastic news for the UK nuclear industry. But, alongside that, the Government need to consider enablers for nuclear, including a secure source of nuclear fuel. Can the Government say when they plan to bring forward the date for a ban on Russian imports of nuclear fuel into the UK, as the US has done, with all the benefits that would bring for forthcoming investments in the UK, international leadership in this area and our energy security?

The position of the Government is essentially that we want to see homegrown nuclear energy, as well as wind energy and hydrogen energy, so that we do not have to rely on foreign imports. I completely accept what the noble Lord said; I know it is something that the Government are looking at and want to address.

My Lords, could the Minister tell the House whether, following this development, it is intended that GBE should merge with what is now called GBE-N—formerly Great British Nuclear—in order to enable joined-up thinking and avoid separate decisions coming out of different silos?

I thank the noble Viscount for that question. The Government’s approach is that these two, Great British Energy and Great British Energy-Nuclear, are allied organisations that will probably work together to produce more clean energy into the future. The target for GBE-N is to focus on small modular reactors in the medium term to generate those jobs and to get a modular system, with technology that we can replicate around the country.

My Lords, I am a keen advocate of both the Trawsfynydd and Wylfa sites for nuclear development. Can the Minister give some indication of the likely timescale for SMR—not only announcements on it but when work will commence on those sites? The danger is that we are losing the race for SMR production against overseas competitors.

The preferred bidder is Rolls-Royce and I think we are ahead of the curve in all this. We are investing in the technology and we want to see it coming online in the medium to long term—some time in the 2030s. This technology will revolutionise nuclear power in the country, so that we can spread out nuclear technology around the country, build the supply chain and generate power for over 3 million homes. I think we are ahead of the curve: we know what we are doing on this and we are going to generate that energy in the future for the country.

My Lords, the Minister said that everybody around the House supports nuclear. No, the Green Party does not support nuclear. It is a dinosaur technology and it is really very expensive, when you look at the planetary impact and the cost to the Exchequer. It is going to be a disaster and it will be overtaken by sea-level rises as well. Why do the Government not take some good advice on this instead of believing in nuclear all the time?

I appreciate that point of view, but I think it is a bit on the fringe of what this House and people in the industry think. We have to remember that once Sizewell C is geared up and producing energy, we expect it to make a saving. The noble Baroness can turn her nose up at this, but once it is online it is going to generate savings for the economy and consumers of £2 billion a year over 60 years. I think that is a good saving for the economy and for the British people. It is something that we need to continue to invest in.

My Lords, given the announcement at the weekend that £200 million is going to be spent through Great British Energy to purchase solar panels from China, how can the Minister reconcile that with the amendment passed by your Lordships’ House that goods that may have been manufactured using slave labour in places such as Xinjiang would not be purchased by Great British Energy? Surely it would have been better to invest that money in British jobs and British production in making solar panels here.

We are talking to British producers and manufacturers of solar cells to see how we can invest in that and advance the technology on solar cells so that we do not have to rely on foreign imports. I get the noble Lord’s question on whether we are being as ethical as we possibly can be. We are building partnerships with key NGOs, including Anti-Slavery International, Rights Lab and Human Rights Watch, to ensure that civil society voices and expertise are embedded in policy design and enforcement. We need to make sure that we are not using slave labour to produce the solar cells that we will be using in this country.

The Government’s commitment to the SMR rollout is welcome, as indeed is today’s announcement on Sizewell C being given the green light. The Opposition believe that nuclear can be a significant contributor to a balanced scorecard alongside gas and renewables to give us a secure, affordable and clean energy system. Will the Government use the current Planning and Infrastructure Bill as an enabler for nuclear, to remove the often spurious and vexatious blockages of long-term planning?

I thank the noble Lord for that question. Obviously, we will do everything we can to expedite the planning process. We are very keen on infrastructure projects that are in the national interest. I want to refer to something that the noble Lord said yesterday about this Government’s approach to renewable energy. He said that it is “anti-science, anti-jobs, anti-energy security and anti-future generation”.—[Official Report, 21/7/25; col. 92.] As far as anti-science is concerned, I do not think that there are many eminent climate scientists who think that we are anti-science. There are 1 million jobs now reliant on green energy. Energy security is important, and that is what we want. We want more homegrown energy. That is why our investment in nuclear is important. On anti-future generation, I have three grandchildren, and if we do not do something now, they will never forgive us. It is for not just my grandchildren but everybody in this House’s grandchildren that we are doing this. We need to invest in it. We need to get the country around it. It is the patriotic thing to do.