Lord Ravensdale (CB)

My Lords, I declare my interest as the chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis. It is wonderful to be back in your Lordships’ House after a fairly brief hiatus, and it is very good to see the Government bringing this legislation forward. I shall focus my remarks on new Chapter 4KA, to which the Minister referred and which concerns uranium and the nuclear fuel supply chain. I have been working on this for several years with other noble Lords across both this Government and the previous one, so it is really good to see this action being taken on nuclear fuel imports. Of course, the Government were very quick to sanction and take action on hydrocarbons, but, on nuclear fuel, we have been in a similar position in that Russia has dominated that market. For example, some 50% of the world’s uranium conversion capability was undertaken by Russia, so there has been a bit of a gap there in terms of our focus on energy. We have brought the focus on to hydrocarbons, but nuclear fuels have been affected; that is now fixed by this legislation. I will come on to our own supply chains in a minute, but I have an initial question for the Minister. Sizewell B is the nuclear power plant currently impacted in terms of Russian material. I would like to clarify whether the measures in this statutory instrument will, in effect, stop that route for Russian material going to Sizewell B through the existing contracts with a Russian supplier. I would be grateful if the Minister could let me know about that.