Justification Decision (Generation of Power by the RR SMR) Regulations 2026

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Justification Decision (Generation of Power by the RR SMR) Regulations 2026.

My Lords, these regulations were laid before the House on 3 June. They will give effect to the Secretary of State’s decision that power generation using the Rolls-Royce small modular reactor is justified in the UK under the UK’s regulatory framework for practices involving ionising radiation. This decision has been taken within that regulatory framework. It is a step towards enabling a new form of reliable, low-carbon power generation in the UK, supporting our energy security, reducing carbon emissions and delivering economic opportunities, including for UK jobs and supply chains. It also has the potential to provide dependable baseload power for a more resilient electricity system, while supporting the development of a domestic nuclear supply chain.

The statutory framework, in place since 2004, requires that any new class or type of practice involving ionising radiation is assessed before it can be introduced. The key question is whether the benefits outweigh the potential risks to health from radiation exposure. In this case, the Secretary of State has concluded that they do.

It is important to be clear what this decision does and does not do. This is a generic, non-site-specific decision. It does not authorise the construction or operation of any reactor. Any future project would be subject to the UK’s independent system of scrutiny, including the need to secure environmental permitting, nuclear site licensing and planning consent before it could proceed. These processes involve detailed assessment by independent regulators, including bodies such as the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the relevant environmental regulators, to ensure that safety, security and environmental protection requirements are met.

The decision underpinning the instrument follows a thorough and proportionate evidence-based process. It draws on advice from independent regulators, statutory consultees and a public consultation, which was held in late 2025 and received 50 responses. Most respondents agreed that the Rolls-Royce SMR represents a new class of practice and that sufficient information had been provided to inform a decision. Taken together, the evidence provided a proportionate and transparent basis to support the Secretary of State’s conclusion.

My Lords, I welcome these regulations. This is the right thing to do, and it is the right time to do it, because our energy security is under real pressure. We need every credible part of the low-carbon mix working as hard as it can.

This order will give legal effect to the decision that the Rolls-Royce small modular reactor is justified under the 2004 regulations. It is a generic and non-site-specific decision. It does not authorise a single spade in the ground, still less the construction or operation of the reactor. All the real-world hurdles remain: environmental permits, a nuclear site licence, planning consent and all the other approvals that any serious project must secure. It was good to hear the reassurances on that front from the Minister.

That matters, because this Committee should be clear about what is being decided and what is not, as the Minister said. We are not approving a reactor to be built tomorrow; we are saying that, in principle, the design has passed the justification test. That is sensible, and we support it. But it is not the same thing as delivery, and we are clear that we do not want it to be confused with a regulatory green light, with progress on the ground.

Our central point is that we believe the best way to cut bills for everyone is to invest in home-grown renewable power, electricity storage and the infrastructure that gets clean electricity to where it is needed. That is where the quickest gains are, where the biggest jobs dividend is and where the strongest long-term energy security will come from. So we support SMRs and we support this justification decision, but we should not let the enthusiasm for emerging nuclear technology become an excuse to drift back into the bad old habits of overpromising on nuclear while underdelivering on renewables. Large-scale, expensive and slow-to-deliver nuclear projects have had years to demonstrate their value. Too often, they have done the opposite; they have tied up time, money and political attention that could have been used more productively and more proactively elsewhere.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for this statutory instrument following the Government’s consultation on the application for the Rolls-Royce small modular reactor. The decision obviously confirms that the small modular reactor is justified in principle, and we support that. This is an encouraging step in the right direction to enable the UK’s first small modular reactors and ensure that new nuclear reactor technologies form part of our future energy system.

Our domestic nuclear reactor industry needs a supportive Government in order to be globally competitive. There are many rivals around the world that benefit from such a situation, and we must not handicap our own. This is a strategic industry where the research and manufacturing capabilities are critical, not just to our energy security but to our national security. That support is critical also to the export success for Rolls-Royce SMRs in Sweden and the Czech Republic and its current European leadership. Rolls-Royce itself describes the need for volume to drive industrialisation and reduce unit costs.

As the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, have pointed out, this is just a first step. The construction or operation of a reactor still has to go through all the hurdles of environmental permits, a nuclear site licence and planning consent. The Government must be consistent in their backing, and I would be grateful if the Minister could set out a timeline for the delivery of the first UK SMRs.

I have a few further questions related to the issues in this SI, which may well be outside the brief that the Minister and I usually inhabit so I will be completely happy with replies in writing. There is considerable evidence of the favourable carbon emissions intensity of SMRs, but what assessment have the Government made in coming to this decision about the cost of this electricity and how that will compare to other electricity generation sources? We appreciate the importance of this project but we would welcome the publication of more information on the impact of future electricity costs in the UK.

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who took part in the debate. As was said earlier, it is important to point out that the matter before the Committee is this particular instrument, which is narrow in what it does. It gives legal effect to the Secretary of State’s decision that this class or type of practice—power generation using the Rolls-Royce SMR—meets the statutory test. A few questions were broader than that, particularly the noble Lord’s on woodland carbon capture and so on. I will focus on the questions on the statutory instrument, and we can perhaps pick up some questions more broadly. Quite a lot of work is going on in that area within the department and in other Ministers’ portfolios, and it might be easier for us to pick up some of those particular questions around carbon capture and so forth on another occasion.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, talked about the time it takes to bring in a new nuclear build. I understand why there is nervousness about timescales when we talk about building new nuclear energy, in whatever form. I have the scars on my back from working on the Hinkley Point C project—we initially had it coming online in 2019—so it is very problematic sometimes with these really big nuclear power stations.

I will make two comments on that. First, SMRs are a lot smaller and quicker to build. They can be more flexible in what they are, what they look like, how much they supply and so on. So it is an approach that is different from the traditional large power stations that we are used to seeing built. We fairly recently did the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which looks at bringing in nationally significant infrastructure projects—NSIPs—of which nuclear is part. So we are doing what we can to speed up the planning process to ensure that we can build these smaller and smarter nuclear power stations more quickly.

I reassure the noble Baroness that renewable energy is an absolute priority. I do not think anyone here would think that the Secretary of State for DESNZ does not have renewable energy as a priority. But we need a proper energy mix in this country, particularly if we are to meet our carbon targets, and nuclear energy plays an important role in that. As the noble Lord said, we want to move as quickly as we can on this, but that is not the purpose of the statutory instrument; it enables Rolls-Royce to take those SMR projects forward. As the noble Lord said, Wylfa is likely to be the first.

Motion agreed.