Contribution
My Lords, Amendment 202 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Offord of Garvel. It addresses the pressing need to streamline and speed up the delivery of new nuclear power stations, currently burdened by heavy-handed regulations. It aims to correct this and ensure that our planning system facilitates rather than fetters the delivery of affordable, accessible and secure energy for the British people.
Energy is the fundamental deciding factor in the success of an economy and that has never been truer than it is today. Energy is indeed now the currency of AI. Progress is decided by whether innovation can be supported by a cheap and accessible supply of energy, and in the present day, with round-the-clock data centres, AI start-ups and an economy that runs non-stop, that is all the more important. If we want to be a growing and prosperous economy, we cannot resign ourselves to be a nation that accepts intermittent and expensive energy.
Unfortunately, we—I include successive Governments in that—have so far done just that. Our international counterparts have been busy reducing their costs and securing their domestic energy supply. At the same time, we have been busily engaged in a somewhat blinkered and self-defeating ideological pursuit. The result is that our costs are now some of the highest in the world, and our shackled planning system does not let us correct this.
This is not an attempt to play politics; the empirical evidence proves the point. Wind and solar energy now account for nearly 40% of our national grid generation. We have commandeered fields and tarnished the countryside to reach this outcome. The result is that even if wholesale prices halve in the next five years, electricity prices will be 20% higher. The policy costs of this Government’s initiatives add around £300 to the average annual bill and cost companies twice as much to deliver it as it does in France. This is not the result of an efficient energy system.
The obvious solution to this is to build more nuclear power plants. They may have large upfront costs, but that is offset by relatively small variable costs. There are potential economies of scale, and they are infinitely more productive than the sources of energy we currently rely on. Once built, they are entirely domestic and provide a secure and sovereign energy source. Replace wind with nuclear power and we have a source of energy that uses up 3,000 times less land—that is an environmental change that will have a noticeable effect on the people of this country.
The problem lies in the fact that we have not taken the necessary steps to realise nuclear’s benefits. The last nuclear power station to come online did so 30 years ago, and of the five in use, four are scheduled to close by the end of the decade, as it currently stands. Hinkley Point C, currently under construction, is set to become the most expensive power station in human history, at an exorbitant £44 billion in 2024 terms. It uses the same EPRs as counterparts in France and Finland, yet they pay 27% less per kilowatt hour than we do.
I spent yesterday in Finland at Olkiluoto 3, the first nuclear power station to have been opened in 15 years. It began electricity production in 2023. It is estimated to last for another 100 years and is the third-most powerful nuclear power generator in the world. It produces almost a third of all electricity in Finland, regardless of the weather or the time of day. It is the same design as Hinkley Point and that proposed for Sizewell C, so we should learn from the engineering challenges faced by the Finns.
The environmental lobby has undertaken a two-pronged attack on energy security, the first of which is the endless sprawl of wind and solar farms, the second being the endless stream of consultations, challenges and appeals that are now a given with every new planning application. This amendment would go a long way to answering that problem, putting progress over paperwork and allowing vital national infrastructure to be built.
If we seriously want lower bills, a dynamic and growing economy and a Britain that attracts investment, we must be brave in bypassing the self-sabotaging legislation which holds us back. This amendment would not dangerously free the market. It is a balanced approach that gives the Secretary of State the choice—it is a choice—on whether the benefits of nuclear power must outweigh discretionary environmental concerns. It would allow us to achieve energy security, embrace the new technologies that come with industrial development and enable the growth that this Government have for such a long time promised. I beg to move.