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Mr. Dalyell: Before the Minister shakes his head at the question of decommissioning, the fact nevertheless remains that, when I was at Sizewell yesterday, many serious members of the nuclear community took the view that the Government were still arguing about decommissioning and were in no mood to accept that they should be responsible.

Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The real issue is that the Government are cutting off the flow of money to the public which would help to meet those--as yet incalculable--liabilities in the future, and that they are doing so while transferring only limited liabilities to the private sector, without proper guarantees that it will meet even those limited liabilities.

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The Government seem happy to rely on the assumption that, many decades hence, a private company will discharge substantial liabilities long after its existing reactors have ceased producing revenue. As the Select Committee report points out, that is not a sufficiently reliable arrangement--but the Minister chose not to respond to the Select Committee's concerns, let alone to the concerns of Opposition parties.

The Government should listen to the weight of public concern on the issue. This privatisation is not good for the taxpayer. It raises enormous and as yet unanswered questions of safety and cost for the general public, and it should be stopped immediately. If the Government had to clear up the mess that they will cause with this privatisation, I am quite convinced that they would live to regret it. It is more likely that others will, sadly, have to tackle those problems.

5.37 pm

Mr. Phil Gallie (Ayr): I immediately take the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) to task on three issues. On the issue of nuclear industry economics, he said that the Government were wrong in the past to expect cheaper units from the nuclear industry. He is wrong. I shall explain later how the price of nuclear energy--the nuclear unit--has been driven down, disproving his point.

The hon. Gentleman has also ignored the important environmental benefit of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is certainly clean and environmentally friendly in respect of air conditions, but that causes a great problem for me and for people in Scotland who work in the power industry. Fifty per cent. of our power generation is tied up in very good nuclear plant. Because of the limitations on gas emissions created some years ago, very strict limits were placed on the amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide that could be emitted by fossil fuel-powered stations, and those limits made it impractical to use fossil fuel-powered stations to a greater extent. The nuclear industry provides environmental benefits to this country, and that is why nuclear power stations were very much desired back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, for which we should all be grateful.

The hon. Member for Truro also described the nuclear industry as a white elephant. I do not often quote the words of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) with approval, but I agree far more with his vision of the industry than with the hon. Gentleman's.

The motions on the Order Paper for this debate clearly reflect the differences between the Conservative and Labour parties. The Conservative party's role is to govern; the Labour party's is to form the Opposition. Our motion is positive, appreciative of the industry and forward-looking. The motion moved by the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) is hesitant and--typically--scaremongering. That is wholly unjustifiable. The right hon. Lady protested her innocence in this respect, but she should read her motion again. It speaks of

"potential hazards to the public."

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That is scaremongering by any other name. So if she really objects to being accused of scaremongering, she should do the honourable thing and withdraw her motion. It is ill conceived.

Mr. Battle: What is the hon. Gentleman's view of the nuclear installations inspectorate's report on what has happened at Heysham B and Torness?

Mr. Gallie: The nuclear installations inspectorate has done the job it is there to do, in the public sector or the private sector. It has identified a problem that the industry will have to rectify. That is precisely as it should be. I do not honestly understand the point of the hon. Gentleman's intervention--

Mr. Battle: Those two reactors have been shut down--it has actually happened. Is not that a legitimate matter for concern?

Mr. Gallie: Not for the future operation of the nuclear industry. This is a question of confidence. If there is a problem with a reactor and a consequent threat to public safety, it must be shut down. That is the same whether it is owned by the public or the private sector. So I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's intervention.

Mr. Wilson: Try mine. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman expresses his confidence in the privatised nuclear industry in good faith, but I do not see why we should accept his word as opposed to that of Captain Richard Killick, a former nuclear submarine commander and thereafter director of safety at Scottish Nuclear. He has warned in specific terms of the increased dangers and risks inherent in the privatisation of the industry.

Mr. Gallie: I have probably spent more time in the electricity supply industry than Commander Killick has. His opinions differ from those of others in Scottish Nuclear. Why should I believe his opinions as opposed to those of other sages who have been involved in the industry for many years and who are highly competent?

During the opening speech of the right hon. Member for Derby, South, I referred to a report on Hunterston station which shows that safety there has recently been improved beyond recognition.

The Labour motion suggests, as usual, that the Government are rushing ahead. What does the Labour party think the Government should be doing? Whenever the Government take a decision, we are told that they are taking it too hastily. We have been talking about this issue since the mid-1980s. The Labour party is great at talking, but I doubt whether it would ever achieve anything if it got into government--which remains a dubious proposition.

Mr. Wilson rose--

Mr. Gallie: I know that other hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), want to speak in this debate, and I do not want to be delayed by too many interventions. The hon. Gentleman, however, is most persuasive.

Mr. Wilson: I do not want to speak in the debate, although I shall certainly listen to it. The hon. Gentleman

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has missed out some of the history. When this issue was discussed in the mid-1980s, privatisation was rejected. It has only been reborn as a cynical political device to raise money for tax cuts before a general election. If the hon. Gentleman is going to quote history, let him at least quote it accurately.

Mr. Gallie: The hon. Gentleman will not allow me the opportunity to do so--he keeps jumping up and down and intervening. I shall deal with all the points to which he refers later in my speech.

The nuclear industry has been built on the successes of private industry--of companies such as Parsons, English Electric, AEI, Clarke Chapman, Babcock, Weir, Howden, and John Brown. I could reel off many more names of great British companies that have helped to build up the nuclear industry; all of them private, all subject to the inspectorate, and all meeting the requirements of the inspectorate and delivering the goods. We should therefore entertain no fears about the privatisation of the industry.

One has only to think of the privatisations of British Airways, British Gas, telephones and electricity to recall that, each time, Opposition Members protested and went in for all kinds of scaremongering. With one or two exceptions--I think of British Gas's performance recently--these privatisations have been successful. Safety has never been compromised, and there have been no problems. Nor will there be in the future, whichever sector the industry belongs to.

The British Government have led the way on privatisation, and other nations around the world have followed suit. We have had the courage to do what we believe in. The Labour party, too, has followed our lead and now acknowledges that there is no way back: nationalisation was bad for this country, and Labour would not reintroduce it. New Labour is right at least about that, although I doubt whether some Opposition Members missing from their places below the Gangway would agree with everything that new Labour stands for.

I am one of the few Members of this House to have worked in a nuclear power station. It was in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson). I refer to Hunterston; I have also worked at Torness. At Hunterston, we had Magnox reactors and generating sets which outperformed virtually all the other Magnox stations throughout the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s. We in Ayrshire have much to be proud of. The advanced gas-cooled reactors at Hunterston B performed magnificently over the years, as I am sure the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North will agree,

Mr. Wilson indicated assent.

Mr. Gallie: The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) said that with privatisation will come pay and productivity schemes. One of my tasks in the electricity supply industry was to introduce pay and productivity schemes in the 1970s and 1980s. They were tools used by the public sector. They are therefore not the preserve of the private sector. The hon. Gentleman's comments bore no relation to the world of work.

My role at Hunterston involved quality assurance. I admit that it was probably one of the worse jobs I have ever had. It buried me in paper, so it could be said that it was

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good practice for being a Member of Parliament. Although I did not enjoy my work, it helped me to understand the complexity of safety regulations in the nuclear industry.

This is an extremely complex matter that entails going into every detail. Quite honestly, safety regulations are built into the industry in such a way that they can never be shaken loose. Safety is part of the nuclear culture and is instilled into those who operate the stations now and in future.

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