My Lords, if I speak briefly now, I need not intervene on the Minister. Relating to electricity and energy, having had a second weekend without electricity in the Scottish borders as a result of the storm, I may say that moving towards a more sustainable and reliable network is a key consideration for many people in the north of England and the Scottish borders. The Minister led the Statement on this issue, and I know that it is an important issue for him, but we are still vulnerable in this country.
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. Before I ask the Minister my question, it is worth putting on record that we are already a number of weeks behind member states of the European Union, which has now
integrated within the subsidy scheme state aid for climate, environmental protection and energy. Whatever we secure as a result of any new scheme, we will be playing catch-up. It would be most interesting to know whether companies in Northern Ireland can now utilise the new scheme from the European Union within the areas of goods and electricity provision.
My questions to the Minister relate to Clause 51. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, referenced nuclear. I am happy if the Minister wants to write to me on these points. First, how will our approach on supporting nuclear power for both our domestic consumption and exporting technologies, which we will soon see in the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill that is going through Parliament, interact with this legislation? I understand that the Government’s proposal for funding nuclear is to make its funding model more akin to how we fund our railways and our regulated asset base. How will the regulated asset base for private sector companies, which will be able to use it, interact with the subsidy principles? We could see all the work we are doing here become completely irrelevant if private sector companies can use a regulated asset-based system. Can the Minister explain how they will interact? Does the regulated asset base fall into scope within the Bill?
Secondly, as I understand it, the Government, through small modular reactor funding, have already provided £210 million to Rolls-Royce as part of supporting small modular reactors. However, that is for export. Rolls-Royce is very keen to promote the fact that Qatar is interested in buying these technologies; a Minister who was in Qatar in recent months was saying how good that would be, with joint funding from a French company and an American company. My understanding is that support for export, unless it is WTO-approved or through export finance guarantees, is prohibited within this, so I would be grateful to know where that £210 million of small modular reactor funding fits. Is it a subsidy, or would the scheme supporting it be considered a subsidy? If the Minister could respond to those points, I would be grateful.