Speeches by Collinge.

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“Finally, Paul and Andy, do we think regulators have the capability, expertise and resources to regulate these emerging technologies—SMRs and AMRs are new technologies—and can we do that in a proportionate and effective way?”

“Do you agree that the extent of the risk aversion in some assessments of existing nuclear power stations goes too far? For example, that you have to disregard the secondary and tertiary safety mechanisms, nitrogen and boron, and show that the control rods themselves can shut down the reactor. This might be a bit detail…”

“Is there a risk to our sovereign knowledge base of having to rely on an international reactor?”

“Finally, Paul and Andy, do we think regulators have the capability, expertise and resources to regulate these emerging technologies—SMRs and AMRs are new technologies—and can we do that in a proportionate and effective way?”

“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…”

“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 live in Heysham.”

“The taskforce identified regulatory duplication across the myriad regulators we have in the nuclear space. Have the regulators started working on that and on trying to harmonise processes to avoid duplication? Is that work already in process, or is it yet to start?”

“Does that cover the regulatory route as well?”

“Please do.”

“If it does turn out to be harder to deal with or costlier, where should the accountability for that lie?”

“We have heard evidence that quite a lot of waste already in the UK could be reused for various things; for instance plutonium could be used as a fuel in a mixed oxide reactor, and it could also be used in nuclear medicine or in space batteries for long-term space exploration. But the Government policy—certainly for plu…”

“So essentially, we already have a problem or a thing that we need to do, and your view is that this does not materially add to it.”

“Heysham is lovely.”

“I want to talk about decommissioning and waste. Over the lifetime of nuclear energy, we have seen the nature and type of waste change quite a lot, from the very problematic stuff at the beginning to a much better picture now for the defueling of, for instance, Heysham 1 and 2 in my constituency. I want to know whether …”

“At what point do you think you could come back here and say, “This is what the whole-life cost is going to be?””

“The selling point for SMRs and AMRs is the lower capital cost at the beginning, but obviously that is only part of the cost of running a nuclear system; there is operation, defueling, decommissioning and so on. We have not yet been able to get a whole-life project cost estimate for SMRs and AMRs. Vanessa, do you think …”