Planning Bill

It is obvious that this is a matter to which the Government are giving great thought, as are a number of us. They are talking to the companies about this and saying that it is important that it should not be just one group with one design. There has been a lot of rather ill informed comment in the press following the announcement of the British Energy/EDF merger that a monopoly run by the French will be created, which is not the case at all. There are other companies: the German company E.ON, the American company EnergySolutions, and still lurking in the wings is General Electric, whose man I was talking to the other day in London. It has not gone away—the department is not sure, but I can tell it that it has not. It is still interested. There are at least two different designs. Therefore, if we have, as I suspect, 10 or thereabouts new nuclear power stations within the next 20 or 25 years, there will be at least two designs and there will not be a monopoly. The Government are absolutely right to try to create the conditions where there is not a monopoly.