Energy Bill

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson). It would appear that the arrogance of Mr. Hyde, who was mentioned earlier, is not reserved for those who are pro-nuclear. No one has a monopoly on correctness: we should listen to all the arguments, and all contributions should be heard with a degree of humility. As my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed) said, I am the chairman of the all-party nuclear energy group. As such, I accept that I might be said to be pro-nuclear, but I also support renewables and clean coal technology. I am willing to try anything that will ensure that this country and the people who live in it have a sustainable energy supply. I am willing to listen to all the arguments, and to support options other than nuclear—as I have done on many occasions in the past. It is important to remember that the debate is not about nuclear versus renewables. I was once asked why I had become so involved in nuclear energy, given that I come from Glasgow and that there is no nuclear power station on my doorstep. All that is true, and not even one constituent of mine is an employee of the nuclear industry, so how did I get involved? The fact is that my friend Bill Tynan, who used to be the MP for Hamilton, South, was short of numbers for his all-party group and asked me to go along to a meeting. That is what happens with most hon. Members who join all-party groups—we are doing someone a favour. I went along to the meeting and, although I cannot now recall what was discussed, I had an open mind about nuclear. I have never been a unilateralist, and I was willing to listen to the arguments, even though I had reservations about nuclear energy. What I heard was not quite what I was expecting, so I went to other meetings and gathered more information. Eventually, I knew a bit about the nuclear industry and had some understanding of how it could be used for good. At the time, my party was not exactly in favour of nuclear power. Indeed, I am quite taken by how many pro-nuclear contributions have been made from these Benches. That would not have happened when I came into the House seven years ago, and I am pleased that people are listening to the argument. Some of the contributions in support of the Government's proposals have been made by people who were anti-nuclear in the past. I hope that they have taken on board what has been said and that they have changed their minds for all the right reasons, and not just because many of their constituents are employed in the nuclear sector. I worry about the people employed by such power stations and the communities that those power stations help to provide for, and it is important that we do so. I want to talk about security of supply. The hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb)—unfortunately, he and all the other Conservative Members are no longer in the Chamber—said that there was an unjustifiable fear about the supply of gas to this country. He asked why we had to go down the road of nuclear when we could get gas in fairly cheaply. I remind the hon. Gentleman of what has happened in relation to oil and gas. Twenty years ago, would we have forecast the oil problems with Iran and Iraq? Would we have forecast the ongoing cuts to oil production in Nigeria? Would we have realised that the Russians would be suppliers of gas and that they would cut off the gas to their neighbour to make the point that they wanted money? Would we have realised that the pipeline coming from Russia through the Caucasus would be attacked by people who were rioting? We did not know those things, but we know them now. That was why the Government took on board the need to look at a balanced and sustainable energy policy for this country. One problem with renewables is that we cannot guarantee supply. I hope that that will be possible in the future, and I believe that we will meet our targets if we work hard at it. However, we must have a core supply, and I believe that nuclear must form part of that. There must also be investment in clean coal technology. That could be a winner for this country, and we could make a lot of money by supplying such technology to other countries. We must be at the sharp end of that technology's research and development, and I hope that that will bring money back to this country. Security of supply and service is the most important thing that the Government must address. No one would forgive any Government who allowed the lights to go out, whether that happened in 10 or 20 years' time. If we do not make the commitment now, we will not be able to get rid of our dependency on gas. Opposition Members were right to say that we will need to import more gas in the years to come. We have been building lots of storage tanks because, during the cold spell two years ago, we talked about the fact that there might be a shortage of energy due to a lack of gas supplies. Let us hope that the liquid gas storage points that we have been building will help us to overcome any problems that might be caused if we were to be held hostage to a foreign country. There are a few questions that my hon. Friend the Minister of Energy should answer in his winding-up speech. Many hon. Members have mentioned smart meters. Why are we not doing something about them, and can we raise that important matter in Committee? Fuel poverty and social tariffs are important and have been mentioned by several hon. Members. However, I will not talk about them in any detail because I will just be raising the same old questions. More than 100 tonnes of plutonium are stored at Sellafield, and I mentioned in a few interventions the MOX reprocessing system that could be built. I have seen what the MOX station in France can do, and I believe that we could go down the same road. That would certainly reduce the waste that we produce because we would be able to reuse fuel rods from nuclear power stations. My hon. Friend the Minister should be looking at the proposal much more carefully, and he should talk to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland to find out what could be done in his constituency to get the reprocessing unit up and running. That could also give back money to the country in general. Hon. Members have raised aspects of the Government's support and asked where the money will come from. They have asked whether companies want to invest in our nuclear industry. As chair of the all-party group on nuclear energy, I can tell the House that plenty of companies are lining up. They come to see me every other week and try to use me to get to Ministers so that they can attempt to get their power stations on line. It is true that the Finnish power station is overrunning, but it is a new station and one of its kind. It has nothing to do with the repository, which is separate—it just happens to be on the same site. Anyone who has seen the medium-level waste repository in Finland will have been more than a little impressed. If Finland is going down such a road, as Canada will—the Americans have already decided to do so, but it needs to get over legal problems—we in this country should do the same thing.