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Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 February 2025

Debate

Great British Energy Bill

Contribution

My Lords, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, pointed out, it is a bit odd if we think about it. Since we started on this Bill, the Prime Minister has been making some very lively speeches, but going in a different direction. According to the newspapers, he wants to power the energy-hungry data centres needed for artificial intelligence. We all know about those: they are being built and they cannot get enough juice. He expects this own party to back small nuclear reactors in their constituencies. The headline is, “Starmer to Push Past Nimbys and Build Many New Nuclear Plants”. This is all extremely welcome to me. It is the sort of tone we have to adopt 10 times over to meet the challenges and the vast amount of clean electricity that we need. So it is strange that we are here in the meanwhile pursuing an area where nuclear is “verboten”, to use a German term. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, has got a point. I would like a comment from the Minister on whether we are still on the right track or whether we should scrap the whole thing and start with a different policy of him backing the Prime Minister.

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