Speeches by Collinge.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for securing this important debate. Getting accurate health information is essential, and it is a fact that most people go online to get it. Some 48% of UK adults have used o…”

“Part of my constituency is in Lancashire, where fracking testing took place. We suffered earth tremors as a result. Does the Secretary of State agree that the British people do not want fracking in our communities, and do not want the risks that we saw in Lancashire?”

“My constituency has the Heysham 1 and Heysham 2 power plants. The reason why nuclear power will possibly go down is because plants are coming to the end of their lives and the right hon. Lady’s Government did nothing about that for 14 years. Why did she not deliver when she was in government?”

“The Government would not take a view on what is a proportionate risk appetite for the ONR?”

“Finally, I wanted to talk about how EN-7 enables nuclear development in new locations that might be unfamiliar with nuclear technology. I know that my constituency is very comfortable with nuclear, because we have lived with nuclear for decades. Those who are unfamiliar with nuclear might have more reservations, having…”

“I mean as a workforce.”

“We have heard evidence that decommissioning is considered slightly less attractive than generation and new nuclear. Why do you think that is and what are you going to do about it?”

“Earlier, you told us that you are confident that the regulatory review implementation will happen on time. I want to ask you particularly about the semi-urban population density criteria, which in my constituency currently prevents new nuclear on the site of two existing nuclear power stations. That does not make sense…”

“I also want to talk to you about extension of currently existing sites, particularly given the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. You spoke earlier about a strategic steer from the Prime Minister on regulation. I was wondering whether that included life extensions and whether the Government are asking the ONR to review…”

“What takes the time to 2050? Is it the building or getting the community consent?”

“To come back on that, I have talked to a number of people in the industry who believe that the current criteria for extension, for example on graphite cracking, is so risk-averse as to be a little bit silly. It is looking at low-probability events that go much lower in terms of probability than the standard of what the…”

“My question continues on the theme of proportionality. The UK nuclear sector is meant to operate under the “as low as reasonably practicable” principle, but we have heard evidence that the practicable bit sometimes gets a bit lost. I want to start on the environment with you, Andy. The Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce foun…”

“Please do.”

“Mustafa, I want to talk about both safety and environmental risk. The public obviously have views about safety, risk and environmental benefits, and they do not necessarily have a huge amount of knowledge about the nuclear sector in particular. Are you concerned that reduction or changes to regulatory control could pot…”

“What are the costs of safe storage while we do not have a GDF, and how do they compare with getting on with a GDF?”

“I live in Heysham.”

“As we have talked about looking at smaller sites closer to urban areas, for example, as well as sites like Heysham, are there any other regulatory considerations that we should have as we move away from just having traditional nuclear sites towards a more dispersed network, hopefully, of SMRs and AMRs? What other regul…”

“We keep being told that there is a lack of skilled workforce in the nuclear sector and that there is a concern that people will move from decommissioning into new generation, or will not move from new generation into decommissioning, because of the pay gaps and cultural aspects, to be honest. Do you think that regulato…”

“That is part of it, yes. Are you limited by current regulation in the balance that you can give to different costs and benefits?”

“I want to move on to my favourite subject, the semi-urban population density criteria. EN-7 retained the semi-urban population density criteria, despite the fact that it was created in the 1960s, it was based on technology we no longer use and it does not have the decades of operational and safety data that we now have…”