Justification Decision (Generation of Electricity by the EPR Nuclear Reactor) Regulations 2010

My Lords, I have never felt such pressure to make a short speech, so I will see if I can do it. I thank my noble friend for his usual panache in introducing the subject. One of the things that strikes me while reading through these statutory instruments is that we have, once again, a problem of opaqueness with respect to this industry and sector. They are among the few SIs I have read in which, even after reading the Explanatory Memorandums, it is quite difficult to really get to the depths of what they are trying to say. No doubt we can blame that on EURATOM regulations or whatever. In terms of designated technical matters, this sounds innocuous but is obviously crucial to these documents and the meaning of ““justification”” is rather different from what I have known before. In particular, we talk about approval, but neither of these reactors is approved at all. This is just the start of the process and there is much more to go on further. I was particularly interested that in the justification SIs we have two useful definitions—on intermediate-level waste and on spent fuel—but they are never referred to in the documents. That is slightly strange. Unlike my noble friend Lord Jenkin, I did not manage to get through the large documents on the assessments, which I look forward to doing. Mainly health considerations are mentioned, but the documents refer to ““environmental protection””. I would be interested to understand whether environmental issues were taken into consideration in terms of the effective cost-benefit analysis that is taking place. When you get to the bottom of this, the regulations are not approval of either of these designs. I would be interested to obtain clarity from the Minister on when that approval process might take place. I also note that these regulations deal with only two of four reactor classes that the Secretary of State has deemed necessary to go through those processes. Where are the other two? Will they come through your Lordships’ House as well? Given that this is a requirement under the EURATOM legislation, I would be particularly interested to understand what has happened in terms of these two designs in other member states. Have they gone through the same procedure yet? Have any member states rejected them or hesitated in terms of justification? That would be useful and important to understand. I see from some of the Explanatory Notes that ““justification”” includes a much broader process than just the nuclear reactions that take place and nuclear generation. It can include the whole supply chain. Therefore, is the justification seen by the Government to include waste disposal? I suppose I ask from this half of the coalition whether you can really justify such reactors when we have not sorted out waste disposal in the longer term. I treat that more as a philosophical question. Certainly, as the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, has said, I have no intention of bringing the matter to a vote this evening. On decommissioning, I welcome very much the Government’s repetition that there will be no public subsidy for nuclear power. I know that some of the papers answer why interim storage is included in decommissioning. It seems to me that it was already included effectively in the decommissioning of interim waste disposal sites. But obviously interim waste, or waste facilities, will have to be built anyway as these nuclear power stations are developed. What happens to the cost of building them to enable them to operate? Is that included in this scheme? Although these instruments cover funding, and I know that we have further instruments to approve, I ask the Minister now when we are likely to have the detailed funding mechanisms. This caused considerable debate earlier in the year when the previous Government started to present this under one of the energy Acts. This is of the greatest importance. The Minister may not be able to answer these questions now, but certainly I would like him to in the future. How do we make sure that these funds, which will be very large amounts of money, are not affected by such issues as bankruptcy of the companies involved; are not sold on in the money markets to other owners; or, perhaps the biggest risk, are not consumed by the Treasury long before they ever reach decommissioning of the power plants? Given the fact that it is accepted that the nuclear industry will go ahead to meet our energy needs for the future, I welcome these regulations and hope that we will move forward in a well managed and effective way to achieve that.