Energy Bill

I say ““Hear, hear”” to that. We are doing our best to help to facilitate investment in nuclear, but I am afraid it is becoming clear that we cannot yet trust the Government to resolve the problem of waste disposal. We all understand the distinction between legacy waste and new waste. There is a process to manage the former, overseen by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, but what concerns us is the Government's approach to the latter. In late 2006, the Government decided to re-establish the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, commonly known as CoRWM, with new terms of reference, as a permanent independent body to provide advice and scrutiny on the Government's Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme. The first meeting of this new body took place on 28 to 29 November last year. That is very strange because, as the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee points out, DEFRA's MRWS consultation, called ““A Framework for implementing Geological Disposal””, closed for submissions on 2 November 2007. How can the consultation on managing radioactive waste close before the Committee in charge of scrutinising the management of radioactive waste has even had a single meeting? Moreover, the Government are committed to respond to the consultation in a White Paper, which we have been promised this year. That makes me wonder why we are debating a Bill that claims to"““make provision about the management and disposal of waste””" when the Government are planning future legislation to deal with the disposal of waste. It is our understanding that the Bill demands that each energy company wishing to invest in nuclear power will have to submit a funded decommissioning programme to the Secretary of State for approval, laying out how hazardous material will be treated, sorted, transported and disposed of, crucially,"““during the operation of a nuclear installation””." That clause oddly appears to neglect to provide a strategy for waste after the plant is operational. The White Paper makes it clear that the Government intend to consult on what guidance such funded decommissioning programmes should contain. Again, the terms of the Bill are completely dependent on future consultations and actions. Moreover, given that the Government have still made little or no progress on establishing a lasting waste regime, it seems extraordinary to demand a thorough financial assessment from industry when a giant radioactive question mark continues to loom over the back-end costs. How can the Government invite companies to invest in nuclear power stations without giving them such certainty?