Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the development of the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactor power station at Wylfa.

I welcome the hon. Lady’s commitment to securing a new nuclear project in her constituency. She and I have had a number of discussions about nuclear power and other energy projects.

Nuclear energy provides the stable low-carbon baseload we need to keep the lights on and to support our economy. It is central to our clean power mission. That is why we have launched a new golden age of nuclear, committing £17 billion to the most ambitious programme of new nuclear for a generation. Our small modular reactor—SMR—programme, led by Great British Energy Nuclear, is an example of British innovation at its best. These mini reactors are smaller and quicker to build than traditional nuclear power stations, and we have been considering which is the best site to kick off the SMR programme now that we have reached that decision.

Last week, we announced that Wylfa on the north coast of Anglesey—Ynys Môn—is our chosen site for GBE Nuclear’s first SMR project. A written ministerial statement on the matter was made on Thursday. The initial project will see, subject to contracts, the construction of up to three Rolls-Royce SMR units. The site could host as many as eight, subject to future policy and funding decisions. That will deliver the largest industrial investment in north Wales for a generation. It will provide 3,000 good jobs on the site at peak construction. GBE Nuclear already looks forward to working with Welsh communities on the project, with work due to start on the site as early as next year.

We will be progressing the SMR project across this Parliament, working towards final investment decision. Meanwhile, large-scale nuclear power stations will also continue to make a vital contribution to our home-grown clean energy mix, complementing these SMRs. We will continue to act decisively, to invest ambitiously and to work with communities, investors and allies to deliver this golden age for new nuclear.

Diolch yn fawr, Llefarydd, for granting the urgent question.

Last week’s announcement that nuclear power will return to Wylfa is hugely welcome. I am pleased that the Government have backed the site. As I have mentioned several times in this Chamber, Wylfa is recognised as the best site in Europe.

May I pay tribute to the teamwork over decades, by elected Members from all parties, campaigners, businesses and the local community, who have long fought for new nuclear at Wylfa. Ynys Môn has known nuclear for 65 years, with a strong local college and university ready to train a skilled workforce of the future.

To maximise the success of the project, the Government must work with the local authority on behalf of our community to deliver tangible economic and social benefits. That includes maximising opportunities in the local supply chain. The potential is clear, but the challenge is turning it into reality. After many false dawns and broken promises, my optimism is cautious. We know the cost of failure on Ynys Môn: when the Wylfa Newydd project collapsed, it robbed a generation of the opportunity to live and thrive in their community.

Recent data from the Nuclear Industry Association shows that nuclear jobs on Ynys Môn are at a record low. We cannot afford further setbacks. Clear timelines and transparent decisions are therefore essential. Can the Minister confirm when the Rolls-Royce contract will be signed, the general design assessment completed and the final investment decision made? As it stands, the SMR project is already four years behind the previous Horizon project at Wylfa. The project had a planning application and was approaching a final decision before it collapsed.

Funding the SMR project at Wylfa remains critical. Although the Government’s £2.5 billion for the SMR programme is welcome, most of the costs at Wylfa will currently be funded privately. Given the problems of the past, and that Wylfa will host a fleet of SMRs—these first-of-their-kind reactors—are the Government prepared to demonstrate their full commitment?

The hon. Lady is right that the community in Ynys Môn faced a number of false starts under the previous Government. This is an historic opportunity—a huge moment—as the project moves forward with tangible timelines in place and the £2.5 billion that she mentioned. Rolls-Royce is taking forward three SMRs initially, but there is the potential for more in the future. People will start to see jobs soon. We expect that there will be work on the site as early as next year, including 3,000 jobs when the construction phase is at its peak.

I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to all those who have worked on this project over a great many years. There have been a lot of false starts and disappointments, but last week was a huge moment not just for realising the potential of the site with the next generation of nuclear, but for the UK to see SMRs actually move forward after years of talking, and, with that, the huge investment coming into the social and economic fabric of communities like hers.

The Prime Minister spoke last week about the investment—in colleges, for example—to ensure that we have the skilled workforce in the local area. Nuclear prides itself on creating many well-paid and sustainable jobs. Of course, the hon. Lady’s community has benefited in that way from previous generations of nuclear. We are determined to ensure that those economic and social benefits are felt by her constituents and for those right across the UK.

My constituency hosts Heysham 1 and 2 nuclear power stations, and provides the cleanest energy of any UK constituency, so obviously I am keen that Heysham continues to be part of our golden nuclear future. Is the Minister, like me, eagerly awaiting the report of the regulatory review—particularly on the outdated semi-urban population density criteria—and will he work with me to ensure that the benefits of the Heysham site are known across the industry?

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the huge economic advantage of nuclear. I grew up in Ayrshire, next to Hunterston, so I know how important nuclear power stations are for the communities that grow up around them. We are considering existing sites. This is not, of course, the end of our nuclear ambitions; we have been clear that we see nuclear as a hugely important part of our energy mix now and in future. Our work to consider the regulatory regime will report in due course to ensure that we have a robust process that rightly recognises the importance of nuclear safety but is also flexible enough to take advantage of the opportunities of nuclear.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

It is no secret that I am a fan of new nuclear in this country, so I welcome the progress on SMRs. If we are to have a strong economy and a good standard of life, we need abundant, reliable and cheap energy. Nuclear works in the winter, can run 24/7 to power artificial intelligence, and is 100% clean to boot. It uses 3,000 times less land than wind and solar energy, and the latest prices around the world show that it can be much cheaper, too.

The Conservative position is that we need a lot more nuclear. We were the party that overturned the complete failure of the previous Labour Government to start any British nuclear plants, so I say this with some feeling. I have been told that there was just one nuclear welder left in the country when we started work on Hinkley Point C. We invested in the supply chain and in skills, which had completely withered under the previous Government. Now the most important thing is to keep building.

I personally signed off on a third large nuclear plant at Wylfa because it is our best site. It could host both large-scale nuclear and small modular reactors. By ruling out large-scale at Wylfa and ditching the 24 GW target, are the Government calling time on new large-scale nuclear? That is what it looks like to the rest of the country. It would be a huge mistake—the same mistake that Labour made last time it was in power. If we want cheap energy and growth in this country, we need to build, build, build when it comes to nuclear.

The Minister talked about power generation from SMRs in the 2030s, but industry is being told that it will be 2042 at the earliest. Who is right, and is that really the best the Government can do? We have plans to make nuclear building much cheaper. In fact, to cut environmental red tape, we tabled radical amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, but the Government voted against them. The nuclear regulatory taskforce will report soon, though; will the Government consider our proposals when it does? Lastly, does the Minister agree that it is fundamentally absurd for the Green party to talk about clean power while it has a policy of dismantling Britain’s nuclear power plants?

Well, let me start at the end, because it is nice when we have a rare moment of consensus in this place now and again. I would add our friends in the Scottish National party to the last question, although I am not quite sure about Plaid Cymru—some of its members support nuclear and some do not, even though we are building in Wales. The right hon. Lady is right to say that nuclear must be the bedrock of our clean power system. It is also an economic opportunity, as we all know. I welcome that brief bit of consensus.

The right hon. Member says “build, build, build,” but all the Opposition did was consult, consult, consult. She talks about signing off new nuclear, but none of it has been built. It is easy to sign things off, but the previous Government committed no money—not a penny of funding. On one of the biggest days for our domestic nuclear industry in a very long time, it was remarkable to hear Opposition spokespeople last week talk down the sector. They talked big for 14 years, but built very little. Not a single new nuclear project was completed in their entire time in office, and that is because they did not put any funding into delivering it.

We have committed almost £20 billion of real money to build real projects, because we are ambitious about our nuclear future, about Sizewell C and about this SMR programme. We have not ruled out any future giga-scale projects, but our ambition is matched by funding to actually deliver them. Wylfa was the absolute best site on offer, which is why we chose it to host this most important, flagship project for the United Kingdom. We are delivering jobs and investment in Wales, and we are delivering the next generation of nuclear after many, many years of disappointment by the Conservatives.

Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, told the SNP conference that her Government would not allow Labour to turn Scotland into a “nuclear playground”. I guess she knew her audience, but given her reputation as the common-sense member of that Government, she should have known better. That kind of playground politics is an insult to Scotland’s nuclear workers, thousands of whom leave Scotland to work in highly unionised, safe, skilled jobs in England—and now Wales—to build the next generation of nuclear power stations.

Does the Minister agree that Scotland could have these jobs—that Dounreay, Torness in East Lothian, and Hunterston in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell) could have these jobs—if it was not for the Dr Nos of the SNP and their outdated opposition to nuclear power?

I cannot help but notice that none of the SNP MPs is in the Chamber for this statement, so they are not defending the ideological objection that they seem to have. My hon. Friend, not surprisingly, is absolutely right to highlight the Scottish Government’s playground politics; this is holding back investment right across the country, as well as the necessary energy security.

We know that nuclear power stations across Scotland have delivered generations of well-paid, skilled and sustainable jobs. I recently met people in Torness who had started out as apprentices and who are still there, 20 or 30 years later, working in the nuclear industry. There will be jobs in Scotland in the supply chain for the SMR programme and Sizewell C, but it is a great shame that the Scottish National party is holding back the full potential of Scotland to be part of this nuclear story. I hope that the people of Scotland will vote for a different Government in May, so that we can get on with delivering the jobs and investment in communities right across Scotland.

I call Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

New small modular reactors have real potential to help reduce our reliance on foreign gas and bring down energy bills, as well as bringing a welcome boost to jobs and investment in Anglesey. SMRs should be where the focus is when it comes to nuclear, not big, expensive nuclear power stations that cost multiples more and take far longer to build.

The Liberal Democrats are pleased to see SMRs coming forward as part of a mix of cost-effective and safe decarbonised power generation, but will the Government please confirm that they will also maintain focus on boosting wind and solar power generation in order to bring down everyone’s energy bills? My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) has been working closely with constituents who will now be disappointed that the alternative site of Oldbury has not gone forward, so can the Minister clarify what the future is for that site?

The hon. Gentleman is right to say how important this next generation of nuclear is—but alongside other technologies. The Government have been really clear that our clean power mission is about wind, solar and storage, but it is also about nuclear. That combination is how we deliver our energy security and get away from the volatility of fossil fuels, and it is how we create thousands of jobs across the country. We need all of that.

The hon. Member is right to highlight Oldbury, which is a hugely important nuclear site that is owned by Great British Energy Nuclear. We continue to look at the future potential for Oldbury and other sites. This is not the limit of the Government’s ambition on nuclear; it is the next stage of that ambition. Wylfa was judged as the best possible site for the SMR programme and it is right that we put our flagship programme on the best possible site, but we are ambitious about the future of nuclear and Great British Energy Nuclear is looking at a range of sites across the UK—including both Oldbury and sites in Scotland—for potential future projects.

Although this announcement is a welcome step forward for the SMR programme and the community on Anglesey, after suffering many broken promises and false starts, it is abundantly clear that the UK will not meet our future clean energy needs without further gigawatt-scale plants alongside SMRs and AMRs. To that end, and with Wylfa having been widely considered one of the best sites, if not the best, in the UK for a full gigawatt-scale reactor, does the Minister grasp the urgency in setting out the road map for wider nuclear industry needs for future gigawatt sites beyond Sizewell C?

My hon. Friend is a huge champion of the nuclear industry, and I have learned a huge amount from her in my time in this post. I am sure the whole nuclear industry is grateful for her work on the all-party group on nuclear energy, and in other activities throughout the House to ensure that these issues are always top of the agenda. Great British Energy Nuclear has been charged with driving forward our ambition for nuclear, and the SMR programme is a key part of that, as are Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, and we are also looking at what future potential we need.

Our country’s energy needs will clearly only increase in the coming years, and we will be looking at the future of that energy mix, and the mix of renewables with nuclear. The Secretary of State has charged Great British Energy Nuclear to look at what more projects there will be. I take my hon. Friend’s point about a road map to give some certainty to that, and I am sure that the Minister for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear, Lord Vallance, will have heard that comment, as well as Great British Energy Nuclear, and I am sure they will work with her on that.