My Lords, I reiterate that it is important that the usage of language informs the debate. Wherever we sit, we must be careful that the language used is informed and does not excite people even further.
A number of questions were raised and I will try to go through them as quickly as possible but I would like to go back to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. These matters are nationally significant and nationally important. We live with this currently. As my noble friend Lord Avebury pointed out, this is not something that is going to happen. It is already here and we need to deal with the issue. We are already dealing with it in the short to medium-term and, even then, we are talking about many decades rather than a few years. It is right that after the last process came to a halt, the Government took the sensible approach by stepping back to reflect and see what more could be done to make it a better informed debate. When I looked at the process, it was particularly to see how we could better engage with the public and other stakeholders, beyond the elected members. I agree that the role of the elected members is really important but the debate has to reach much further. Those communities that will ultimately be involved must be assured that they have the final say.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said that the Government do not care about the county council being part of public support but the consultation has made it clear that the detailed process of how community representation operates from 2016 will set out that all stakeholders, including elected members, will be a part of the process. They will be able to feed in and be involved in looking at the processes before any formal discussions take place. We have two years within which that process is going to take place and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is fully aware of that. I look forward to his participation in it, along with his colleagues’.
However, I would also reiterate that noble Lords from Cumbria have just assumed that Cumbria is the given choice. At this time, no community has been identified. No site has been identified and we must not pre-empt, or be premature in, the assumption that it will be Cumbria. I also made it clear that, from looking at the last process, the debate needed to go much wider and further. Communities needed better information to come forward. That is why I continue to push back when people say, “This is ultimately going to be in Cumbria”. We do not know at this stage. We have two years in which people will be involved and able to be better informed.
The noble Lord also asked whether the siting process would be voluntary and why we are taking decisions away. The process of obtaining consent to develop a site is separate from the process of identifying a site in the first place. The final decision to apply for the development consent will not be taken until—and, as I think I reiterated in my opening remarks, unless—there is a positive test of public support for the GDF site in question.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked whether I could guarantee that the GDF would be safe. She read off a number of scenarios where she believes that there is risk. Let us first be very proud of the fact that we in
the UK have regulators who are among the toughest in the world. As with all standards around nuclear, the standards for the GDF are incredibly high. If we cannot satisfy ourselves and the independent regulators that a GDF is safe then it will not be built. We would need to be reassured that the standards of the stringent international and national regulations were met before we would even endeavour to construct and operate a GDF.
My noble friend Lord Inglewood asked about the England and Scotland question. The nuclear industry covers England, Scotland and Wales. However, the planning legislation—which is what we are discussing today—covers only England. Planning and radioactive waste policy are devolved issues, and colleagues in Scotland and Wales will have their own processes to deal with planning and waste policy issues in their jurisdictions.
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