Energy Bill

Indeed it is, but it is that minority stakeholding that we would like to know more about, because the implementation of the Bill may go one way or another depending on what happens to the commercial infrastructure in which it will have to work. About that, however, we hear nothing from the Secretary of State. Indeed, I wrote to him during the recess, requesting an urgent clarification of the Government's position before a sale goes through in order to avoid having to endure the embarrassment and confusion of a messy post-mortem thereafter, but I am afraid that the response was bland and unhelpful. We still await a clear public statement of the Government's principles on this vitally important commercial deal, which will determine the shape of electricity generation in the nuclear sector in the UK for the next 50 or even 100 years. Neither have we heard a whisper from the Department on the tendering of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's contracts for legacy waste and its clean-up, which might have a price tag of £18 billion. How will the Government ensure that competition is maintained in this area of the nuclear sector? It is no good the Government sidestepping the key commercial issues that concern nuclear, while at the same time trumpeting their conceptual and economic benefits. Policy, as part of this Bill, needs to be created in a coherent and all-embracing way.