| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
27 Jan 2003 : Column 635—continued
Dr. Ladyman: The hon. Gentleman mentioned safety several times. In more than 50 years, the total number of deaths as a result of the nuclear power industry is fewer than one a year. In the same period, the figure for the conventional power industry is 11,300. Will he therefore stop claiming that there is a safety issue? Nuclear is the safest form of electricity.
Mr. Thomas: I am tempted to take the hon. Gentleman to a wind farm site. I appreciate that I am straying, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall be careful. The only community-owned wind farm site in Wales is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) and is on land that is still contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster. That is the price of the nuclear industry. The wind farms that have been built on the land will not contaminate it; Chernobyl still contaminates it.
Dr. Ladyman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Thomas: I shall not give way again on that, and I will move on.
If the Bill is genuinely to protect taxpayers' interests, we must consider all the options. Hon. Members have outlined them, and I shall not reiterate all the questions. The Bill as currently drafted distorts the market enormously. It is open to challenge, and I would be amazed if another energy generating company did not
challenge it. The European Commission has agreed to the £1.15 billion, but the Bill is different. I should be surprised if it were not challenged in some court.In the context of the continuing debate on the White Paper, the Bill puts paid once and for all to the idea that we can have energy that is too cheap to meter. We should be grateful for that. The Bill acknowledges the true price of cheap energy. It is noticeable that several Labour Members have claimed that energy is too cheap. A liberalised market delivers the cheapest energy; that means the dash for gas and everything else that we have had to tolerate. I hope that hon. Members realise that cheap fuel alone cannot fulfil the need for security of supply and long-term energy. It cannot solve fuel poverty, which relates to energy efficiency and providing the best resources to the poorest people. It is not simply a matter of the price per kilowatt hour of electricity. I hope that that realisation is dawning on Labour Members. That is not apparent in the Bill.
The Bill does not deal with the genuine, long-term costs of the nuclear industry. It does not tackle the costs that the PIU report outlines or our position in five or 10 years. The measure is a sticking-plaster solution. Sticking plasters are not safe for nuclear reactors.
7.52 pm
Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone): I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas). I agree with much of his contribution. He said that he was disappointed with the Bill, but appeared to suggest that if it were more specific about public ownership, he would be attracted to voting for it. Similarly, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) considered whether the cost of public ownership would be too dear. At the same time, he appeared to claim that the liabilities were so great that if the Government took them on, the industry could be privatised again. I do not accept that.
The only way forward is public ownership. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) suggested that to some extent. He rightly pointed out that the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) did not robustly oppose renationalisation in the way that Conservative Front Benchers normally do. Perhaps he accepts that public ownership of a company that has such vast liabilities is the only way forward.
Mr. Blunt: I want to ensure that I have not given hon. Members the wrong impression. Conservative Members would oppose renationalisation. Administration is a perfectly good route. The company's assets—the working power stations that generate cash and power—can be sold out of administration. The taxpayer will have the first charge on any receipts from that to meet the liabilities that the Government have taken on.
Mr. Clapham: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that point. Doubtless my hon. Friend the Minister has noted it.
I appreciate the Minister's need for the Bill. I understand that the Government require such a Bill to restructure. However, rather than restructuring British Energy and having to come back to the House to discuss public ownership, I urge the Minister to consider public
ownership as the first option. I hold that view because of the enormity of the liabilities, to which I shall revert shortly.The economic case for nuclear energy is not strong. If we consider the competition in the market before the new electricity trading arrangements, it is apparent that nuclear energy could hack it only because the pool favoured it. When I was member of the Trade and Industry Committee, we considered the proposal to privatise in 1996. It was discernible that the Tory party had decided to privatise British Energy despite removing it from the privatisation package in 1990 because the economic climate had changed. It had introduced the non-fossil fuel levy, which obliged specific suppliers to buy energy from a nuclear source, and the nuclear levy. The latter paid for the nuclear industry. The Tory Government therefore decided to privatise British Energy because the commercial position had changed.
The position has subsequently changed dramatically. The Minister referred to security of supply and safety. We should take up those points and I hope that Opposition Members are prepared to support the Government on them. Safety has been mentioned, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) pointed out that only one person a year had died in a given period in the nuclear industry. However, he omitted to mention the way in which privatisation changes the safety culture. For example, contracting out and outsourcing in British Rail resulted in the employment of people who were less skilled than the previous in-house workers. That led to some of the problems that British Rail experienced and to Network Rail as a solution. Network Rail has now decided to use in-house workers for many of the maintenance jobs.
When British Energy was privatised, there was a move to outsourcing. Only a few months ago, the nuclear installations inspectorate raised the problem of safety. Questions were asked in the House about its report. British Energy may have adjusted to that. I am not sure whether it did so by retaining payroll workers in maintenance and cutting its outsourcing, but the nuclear installations inspectorate drew our attention to it.
Mr. Hendrick: Is my hon. Friend, like John Edmonds, the general secretary of my union, advocating a Railtrack-style solution?
Mr. Clapham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for prompting my memory. When the Minister considers the total picture, if he does not feel that outright public ownership should be the model, he may favour a Railtrack-type solution for British Energy. Whichever model he opts for—whether it is the public model or the Railtrack-type solution—the general public will have a greater commitment to the industry. They will feel safer if the industry is operating on a non-profit basis, so that commercial pressures tend not to subvert the safety culture. If it was in the public sector, we would see the return of that safety culture.
Another point that I want to raise with regard to the nuclear industry has not yet been mentioned—the threat from terrorism. We know that the industry is vulnerable
to such threats. Indeed, only two weeks ago the Daily Mirror probed the defences of the nuclear industry and found that it was allowed to enter sites quite easily. Will the Minister tell us whether the Daily Mirror provided him with a report of that incursion by one of its journalists on to a nuclear cartilage, and, if so, whether he will act on it to ensure that security is tightened up?My next point concerns liabilities. Opposition Members have suggested a number of options as to how liabilities should be dealt with. Some believe that the phasing out of nuclear energy would reduce the future liability and therefore be a saving to the overall energy economy, leaving more money available to be invested in its future. Others feel that the industry should be phased out over time, as in, for example, Holland, Germany, Spain and Sweden. I tend to favour that approach, because it would allow the industry to work to a timetable of phasing out and would enable the Government to address the issue of jobs. However, that would be better done within the context of public ownership. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said that he was ideologically opposed to renationalisation. He did not use that phrase, but I think that is what he meant. If he had looked at some of the huge operators in the energy industry, especially British Gas before it was privatised, he would have seen that British Gas was described as a monopoly that operated in the public interest. If the Minister were prepared in clauses 1 and 2 to bring British Energy into the public sector, it would operate for the public interest.
The liabilities are vast indeed. I refer the hon. Member for Reigate to the Select Committee report of 1995–96, in which we were able to see the undiscounted and discounted liabilities. The undiscounted liabilities for the PWR and for the eight advanced gas-cooled reactors, which are part of British Energy, were £10.5 billion. Discounted at the rate of 2 per cent., that liability came down to £7.6 billion. That is another matter that I should like to be clarified. A segregated fund was set up when British Energy was privatised whereby contributions were made by the company towards dealing with the clean-up costs. How much was in the segregated fund when this crisis arose, and does the Minister think that the amounts that were put into it were sufficient? Can he say whether it is the board of the company that decides on the amount of moneys that will be put into the segregated fund? Who decides the rate of discount? That is an important issue. That rate depends on the size of the fund that is to be accumulated to deal with the clean up.
Although I am sceptical about nuclear energy, the Bill is necessary and I shall vote for it.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |