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4.59 pm
Dr. Robert Spink (Castle Point): A privatised nuclear industry will be safer than the current nuclear industry--which I shall explain during my speech. I associate myself with the warm tribute paid to John Hollier by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy. It is always a privilege and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) in debates--even though I disagree with him on this occasion.
We need a balanced energy strategy in this country. Such a strategy must have a nuclear component amounting to 20 or 25 per cent.--that is the medium-term requirement for this country--and I believe that even the Labour party agrees with that sentiment. As evidence of that, I quote the following words:
Believe it or not, they are the words of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn).
Mr. John Battle (Leeds, West):
That surprises me.
Dr. Spink:
Yes, it surprised me too.
In the longer term, I can see a growing need--an expanding need--for nuclear power, along with other forms of alternative power. In fact, I believe that there will be a part to play for new technology and for new nuclear technology. For example, I hope that fusion will come on board, because it will be an inherently safer form of energy generation. However, 10 years ago I thought that I would see it in my lifetime, but I am now beginning to question whether I will.
Today, my first duty is to pay tribute to British engineering. It is as good today as it was when Brunel created his great achievements many years ago. British engineering is world class--in fact, I would go so far as to say that it is world-beating. If hon. Members want evidence of that, they need look no further than Monday of this week, when my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade opened Sizewell B.
Sizewell B is now ready and appropriate for sensible privatisation. It is our first pressurised water reactor. It is a wonderful achievement, and it brings great credit not only to our engineering industry but also to our manufacturing and construction industries. It is an unequivocal success story for Nuclear Electric, and a great international advertisement for all our industrial sectors--particularly for engineering, for operational power generation and for architecture. It also brings--and will continue to bring--great credit to our environmental care strategy.
The Sizewell B performance statistics are remarkable. Since coming into full commercial operation in September 1995, it has achieved an average load factor of 97 per cent.,
and has achieved 173 days of continuous, safe and efficient power generation. In so doing, it has displaced environmentally more damaging forms of power generation--something of which we should all be proud. However, the British character is that we do not easily celebrate our successes; in fact, we more readily criticise, belittle and deprecate our culture and achievements--that is particularly true of Members on the Opposition Benches.
I hope that this afternoon I have been able to redress that balance a little for Sizewell B. I hope that all hon. Members will join today in sending a message of congratulations and thanks to those who built Sizewell B, to those who commissioned it and to those who are now operating it. I look forward to a future decision--which I think will be easier once privatisation is bedded in; that is one of the advantages of privatisation--to build another pressurised water reactor. This decision will need to be taken in order to maintain the balanced energy strategy to which I referred earlier.
Mr. Martin O'Neill:
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the first public utterance that British Energy made was to disavow any possibility of building any more nuclear power stations in the foreseeable future? Where has the hon. Gentleman been sleeping these past few months?
Dr. Spink:
I declare an interest at this stage: I had lunch with the new chairman of British Energy, and he told me that, while there is no decision at the moment--because of the corporate structure development--to go forward with another PWR, he is not discounting the possibility of going forward with a new decision in the future. In fact, I think that most hon. Members received a letter from him yesterday explaining just that. It is in the national interest to have a balanced energy strategy with a 20 to 25 per cent. nuclear component. I do not see any hon. Members jumping to their feet to disavow that.
Mr. Alan W. Williams:
If it is in the national interest to have that 20 per cent. nuclear energy component--I do not agree with it--the way to do it is to keep the nuclear industry in the public sector. That is the only way to retain that percentage.
Dr. Spink:
I take a different view. As I have already said, I believe that the decision to build a second pressurised water reactor will be more easily taken once privatisation is bedded in--but I shall not repeat myself. It will become clearer, once the new privatised corporate structures are in place, how the balance can be struck rationally between the environmental, economic and operational considerations in the light of the prevailing financial, commercial and market circumstances, not to mention the technological developments I mentioned.
I am reasonably sanguine about the lack of a decision now to build a future PWR, but I do not want to see this country lose its expertise and its capability in this area. This country has excellent expertise--I am sure that all hon. Members will agree with that--and excellent capability to project-manage effectively and efficiently to build new major nuclear power plants. We have the expertise to do so within very strict time, cost and technical limits--and to do so successfully.
Perhaps this would be a good time to return to and to review the benefits of sensible, appropriate and rational privatisation. Privatisation offers many benefits--
which were set out in the White Paper, so I shall not repeat them all. I believe that the key benefit is that privatisation would impart to the nuclear industry the ability to make decisions to benefit the industry. One of the key things that will benefit the industry is a strong safety record in the future, as it has had in the past.
Privatisation--as with British Airways--will see the nuclear industry build on and improve its excellent safety and environmental record. To be commercially successful, the nuclear industry will have to be clean, careful and responsible--and I trust it to be just that.
Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Spink:
I shall give way in a moment.
British Airways, in the private sector, has become more safe, not less so. A number of hon. Members raised concerns before the privatisation of British Airways--there was talk about planes falling out of the sky. The nuclear industry would also become more safe, not less so, because it is in its interests to do so. The crash of a plane is just as catastrophic for the people who are in the plane as the crash of a nuclear power station.
Mr. Wilson:
The hon. Gentleman's comments are so bizarre that someone ought to intervene and say something, instead of laughing at him from a sedentary position. Is he seriously drawing a comparison between the safety implications of privatising an airline, in which the same staff stay in place, and the safety implications of privatising the nuclear industry? All available evidence shows us that already the pool of expertise that has been built up in that industry is breaking up, precisely because we will not be building new nuclear power stations in the future.
Dr. Spink:
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should resort to being discourteous to me--there is no room in the debate for that. This is a technical debate, and we may disagree, but there is no point in the hon. Gentleman being discourteous to me. Does he not understand that bodies as diverse as the Health and Safety Commission and Greenpeace have said that privatisation does not mean that corners will be cut in safety?
I also welcome--and the hon. Gentleman should welcome--the fact that the Trade and Industry Select Committee, several of whose members I see on the Opposition Benches, said:
That is an unequivocal fact. Has the hon. Gentleman not taken the trouble to brief himself in the Library and bring himself up to date with those matters?
Mr. Gallie:
The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) has just come in. He has not listened to the debate, and may not have heard some of the comments about safety.
Does my hon. Friend accept that, as I believe, it is fair to return to comments made by Opposition Members when we were discussing the privatisation of British Airways to make comparisons simply to emphasise the fact that scaremongering about safety then had no basis in truth, and that that is the position now?
Dr. Spink:
Yes; and of course I accept that a nuclear power station and an aeroplane have an entirely different
I believe that British Energy is committed to improving safety performance standards.
"All forward forecasts for the first quarter of the 21st century indicate a growing role for nuclear power."
"privatisation . . . need not result in any reduction in nuclear safety".
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