I do not accept that. I was the Liberal Democrat shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the previous Parliament—the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) is now the Labour shadow Secretary of State. I therefore did not just speak in debates in the House but went round the country to look at offshore and onshore wind sites, the nuclear industry and so on. I am very clear that the Liberal Democrats have been enthusiastic supporters of both onshore and offshore wind power, and of tidal and solar power. The reality is that if we had had an integrated EU energy policy a long time ago that harnessed
hydroelectric power from Scandinavia, solar power from the Mediterranean and other power sources—not least from countries such as Ireland and ourselves with fantastic wind and wave power—we would probably not be having this debate, because there would have been no question of going down the nuclear road as we would have our own energy sources shared around the continent. However, because we are not there, we import energy from abroad. We are having a debate about how to become self-reliant, and nuclear energy is back on the table.
The arguments for not going down the nuclear road are that it is hugely expensive and whatever the future might hold the past shows that nuclear power programmes have not been delivered on time or on budget around the world. Secondly, it has never been proved that we can deal with the waste in a secure and safe way indefinitely. There may be adequate, secure ways of holding waste in the short term, but there is no scientific evidence that there is a permanent way to ensure that waste can be held and then disposed of. One reason why the debate in Cumbria the other day went the way it did was that people have not been persuaded, even in areas where it brings a lot of jobs, that this is the sort of industry they want.