Lord Moynihan (Con)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on this occasion because he made some powerful points. Of the five key points I intended to make, he has alluded to four of them, so they are worth focusing on briefly prior to the Minister’s response. The subject of this SI is, in its own right, fairly limited, but it has an impact on a much wider debate on CfDs. My view is that this will need to be revisited at some length in the energy Bill that will come before the House, probably at the end of this year or the beginning next year because there are some critical issues that we will need to consider, many of which the noble Earl raised. I think that the specific nature of this SI will garner support from all sides of the Committee. It is vital that we continue to support firm power generation from nuclear. It is the view on this side of the Committee that firm power is critical and nuclear will provide an important part of that firm power balance, as will gas. We need to offset the intermittency and grid instability caused by our increasing reliance on renewables, and nuclear will play a significant contribution in that context. More broadly, the Government must support new, competitively priced nuclear power, which they intend to do, to expand capacity further by implementing the recommendations of the Nuclear Regulatory Review 2025 in full and easing environmental regulations that are slowing down new nuclear projects, a subject to which we will definitely return to when it comes to the energy Bill.