First, may I minute my condolences on the death of Jack Dromey? I shared his 12 years here and he made an enviable contribution to the House. Particular condolences to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman).
I am thankful for the excellent contributions we have heard today, and over the past few weeks during the passage of the Bill through the House, from Members throughout the House. I will attempt to address all Members’ comments and explain why the Government do not believe that today’s amendments should be accepted.
I turn first to new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) for the SNP, regarding the special administration regime, but before I deal with his amendments, let me reflect a little bit on the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). The SNP, as we know, is talking today about transparency, but its real agenda is a hardcore anti-civil nuclear power agenda. This comes, ironically, just a few days after the closure of the Hunterston power station, which had its life extended by two decades beyond what was predicted and provided 31 years—31 years—of zero-carbon electricity to every home in Scotland. The Bill would make things cheaper, but I do not think that the SNP has got Scotland’s best interests at heart here for Scottish electricity or Scottish consumers.
Nuclear power has been a massive success story in Scotland, which is what I hope the Bill will also enable. New clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, would severely risk the effectiveness of the special administration regime by delaying the speed at which an administrator could access funding to continue a nuclear RAB project construction or a plant’s generation of electricity. That could result in significant sunk costs for consumers and is not in the public interest.
I will turn now to Labour amendments 1 and 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), while responding to some of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member and I are aligned in our concern that foreign investment in our critical infrastructure should not come at the cost of national
security. However, I want to be clear that the Bill is not about decisions on individual future projects; it is about widening the pool of potential investors and financing while reducing our reliance on state-owned developers to build new nuclear power stations. As the House is aware, we have committed to taking at least one project to final investment decision in this Parliament, subject to value for money and all relevant approvals. We are in active negotiations on the proposed project at Sizewell C. The hon. Member argued that the approval of Hinkley Point C would inexorably lead to the approval of other projects. That is simply not the case. Decisions on nuclear projects in this country are made on a case-by-case basis, and subject to a number of robust approvals from both Government and independent regulators.