Planning Bill

I remind the noble Lord of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said when she spoke to Amendment No. 48. In the scenario that the noble Lord is painting, the national policy statement for nuclear power would propose six sites around the country—the number does not really matter. He then said that EDF has two, somebody else has the other one and somebody else has the last one. That is coming very close to the worry expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which I share, that by producing such statements the Government are giving these companies an enormous start-up present because they have monopolies and no one else can build a nuclear power station anywhere else. That, of course, assumes that these stations will get built in the private sector. There is some debate about that but, if they are, I would be very careful about specifying the number because, as the companies will then own them all, they will be sitting pretty.