My Lords, I have some doubt about the proposed new clause of which my noble friend has just spoken. The Nuclear Liabilities Fund very properly seeks to avoid the situation that the country got into over many years when large numbers of nuclear installations of one sort of another were left to be decommissioned and their radioactive materials dealt with, and there were no funds available. One is always astonished at the huge amounts of money that have to be set aside to satisfy the obligations that are now being discharged to decommission these nuclear plants safely and effectively. My noble friend Lord Teverson may contradict me on this, but I believe that it is intended entirely to be confined to that purpose; it is intended to be there when it is needed and nuclear establishments come to be decommissioned. When my noble friend says that this increases the firepower of the Green Investment Bank, what does he mean? Is it intended that the fund should be invested in other green projects, which may or may not achieve the return expected when the fund was invested? I would have thought that that would risk defeating the purpose of the Nuclear Liabilities Fund.
The question of the rate of interest that should be earned on that fund is something that the Minister may wish to look at. I had not refreshed my memory of Professor MacKerron’s report, and I was grateful to my noble friend for reminding me what was in it. Of course, it is a very low rate of interest, as he has rightly said. But the fact of the matter is that this is a hypothecated fund; it is there for a particular purpose, and the idea that it could be used by the Green Investment Bank to invest in something else that might produce a higher return risks prejudicing the absolute and essential purpose for which it has been set up—namely, to meet the costs of decommissioning nuclear plants when they are available. I hope that the Minister will give some indication that he will look at this proposal
in the proposed new clause with some suspicion, because I believe that it might be misconceived. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Teverson for putting it in that form, but I feel very strongly about this.
One of the best things that the previous Government and this Government have done is to make sure that future nuclear liabilities will not fall on the taxpayer but are regarded as a proper cost of those who invest in nuclear installations, power plants and so on. That is what it is intended to do. It is a very wise thing to do, and I hope that it will not be prejudiced by diverting it to some of the other purposes of the Green Investment Bank that noble Lords have talked about this afternoon.