Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): When will work begin on the first new nuclear station and carbon storage plant identified in the Secretary of State’s statement? If it is not soon, the epitaph of this Government will be that they turned the lights out and left us all in the dark.
Edward Miliband: The right hon. Gentleman obviously practised that one in advance. Construction of the new nuclear stations begins in the early part of the next decade because we have to go through the consultation, the strategic siting assessments, and so on. It is a bit rich of the Conservatives to accuse us of being too slow on these questions given that they opposed our proposals right up until the last minute. We want to move forward as fast as possible on carbon capture and storage.
July 16, 2009
Now the Gov’t acknowledges that, in the matter of security of energy supply, we have had 12 wasted years.