My Lords, I speak in favour of Amendments 1 and 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and in favour of Amendment 10, also in his name and to which I have attached my name.
Speaking for the first time on Report on the Bill, I am getting something of a sense of déjà vu. I do not know whether the ministerial Front Bench has brought its snacks this time, but it can sit and watch the show as we see enthusiasm from both Labour and Tory Benches for new nuclear power.
It is interesting to go back to the Explanatory Notes. The policy background that explains the purpose of this Bill is
“a clean energy system that is reliable and affordable for energy consumers”.
These three amendments particularly address that last point—although the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on reliability were also interesting. The words that he used were interesting: “decentralised”, “security” and “stability”. Why put all your eggs in a few large baskets rather than into an extremely decentralised system of renewables, storage and, particularly, energy conservation? That is a genuinely diverse and secure supply. Ask the Japanese about what happened after Fukushima, and they will tell you that, if nuclear goes wrong, you can lose the lot—and then you have a very large problem, as the Japanese did.
With regard to security and affordability, there is an interesting letter in the Financial Times this morning, headed:
“Arguing for more nuclear power was wrong then too”,
from Andrew Warren, chair of the British Energy Efficiency Federation, in Cambridge. It picks up my point that the cleanest, greenest energy that you can possibly have is the energy you do not use. It also comes to the point about value for money and the argument that new nuclear is essential. Mr Warren says that
“back in 2006, when the then Labour government … committed to a ‘family’ of further nuclear power stations”,
it was on the basis that our usage of electricity was going to go up enormously and therefore we needed new nuclear power stations, which of course did not happen. The letter points out:
“UK electricity consumption has in fact gone down by over 15 per cent since 2006. In other words, all that expectation of demand growth which was used to justify new nuclear power stations was grossly exaggerated … by over 30 per cent.”
As Mr Warren notes,
“no new nuclear power stations have been added to the system. The system hasn’t collapsed, and it’s also far less carbon intensive.”
I can imagine that many noble Lords might say at this point, “Well, yes, but we have to electrify transport and home heating”. However, if—to use a word associated with the Prime Minister—we went gung-ho on energy efficiency and a modal shift to walking, cycling and public transport instead of private cars, we could greatly reduce the kind of assumptions that are made. The policy background suggests that the UK electricity supply will need to double and low-carbon sources quadruple by 2050. If we build a different kind of society that needs less power, that is an extremely cost-effective way forward.
To come back to cost effectiveness, I have looked at some figures on this. The Nuclear Industry Association has suggested that the proposed new nuclear plants at Sizewell, Wylfa and Bradwell could come in at £60 per megawatt hour. We have just seen, in the most recent offshore wind projects selected for round 3 of the contract for difference allocations, strike prices as low as £39.65 per megawatt hour. The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, referred to concerns about green subsidies. These do not need subsidies because they are cheaper than any other source of power. That is offshore wind, without even coming to the fact that onshore wind, which I am delighted to see the Government now moving towards, is much cheaper again, as indeed is solar.
Of course there is Hinkley Point C, with a £92.50 contract. The nuclear industry says, “Oh, it will all get better eventually”. It is confident about the £60 figure—and we know how confidence about the cost of nuclear power has worked out in the past—and that over the long term it will eventually get to £40, which is what offshore wind is delivering now.
I particularly want to address Amendment 10, as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, did so effectively in introducing this group, to which I have attached my name, and to look at where we are with fuel poverty. From 1 April, 27% of UK households are expected to be in fuel poverty—and that is a watered-down definition of fuel poverty—so that is 6.3 million households. Each year around 10,000 people die prematurely as a result of cold homes. Again with regard to the policy landscape, if we insulated those homes, those people would not die prematurely. It is interesting that the charity National Energy Action notes that this seems to be within the bounds of some perverse statistical acceptability; we just accept it as being normal and continue to go on as we are.
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I want to address the point about the Government’s levelling-up agenda and look at some of the figures for fuel poverty that will be in place from 1 April. The Bushbury South and Low Hill area of Wolverhampton will have an 88% rate of fuel poverty. The Washwood Heath area of Birmingham, Castle and Priory ward in Dudley and the Shelton area of Stoke, will have more than 80% of households in fuel poverty. Areas of Rochdale, Leeds, Sheffield and Derby will have just below 80% of households in fuel poverty. We are talking about adding significantly to the cost of those bills through nuclear power when cheaper alternatives are available.
I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, on bringing back the triple lock to pensions, but it was his Government who took it away. By focusing on universal credit, we are not reaching everybody who will be in a worse situation because of nuclear power, but we would at least reach a very significant group of people and, because of universal credit, a significant number of children through Amendment 10.
Finally, another question to address was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. He suggested that the Liberal Democrats were not interested in sustaining our industry, but if our industry is competing with a world that has gone for far cheaper renewables, and our industry is relying on expensive new nuclear power, then that is not the way to sustain our industries.