16:12 Andrew Bowie (Conservative)

My hon. Friend has a formidable track record of championing the case for a future nuclear project at Wylfa, both as chair of the nuclear delivery group and through her membership of the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill Committee. She has hosted numerous visits to the site for industry and Government representatives, including Katy Huff, whom I met in Dubai at COP28. She is the assistant secretary for the US Office of Nuclear Energy, and she was waxing lyrical about her visit to the site. She described her site tour with my hon. Friend as a must for anyone visiting Wales.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss our nuclear plans and Wylfa in more detail today. I reiterate the Government’s determination to ensure that nuclear plays a central role in our future energy mix. As part of a massive investment in home-produced clean energy, nuclear will offer the reliable and resilient power we need to reach net zero by 2050 and strengthen our energy security so that we are never again dependent on the likes of Vladimir Putin for our energy. That is why, just last week, we announced the biggest expansion of UK nuclear power for 70 years—I confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that we are indeed getting on with it. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn and other Members for the support they have offered to that programme. We will build up to 24 GW of nuclear power by 2050, which will quadruple our current capacity and allow us to meet up to a quarter of projected electricity demand.

We are already speeding up our nuclear expansion. Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first nuclear reactor in a generation is being built, and we are also making rapid progress on Sizewell C. Just last week, I was happy to move the development consent order and hold the spade that will cut the first turf on the Sizewell C site in the next few weeks. Together, those two plants will generate enough zero-carbon power for 12 million homes, reducing our reliance on imported energy and supporting the shift to net zero. At the same time, our aim to announce the outcome of Great British Nuclear’s SMR technology selection competition this year will make it the fastest competition of its kind in the world. And so I reiterate: we are getting on with it.

With regards to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn made about engaging with our international partners, I got off a call with my counterpart in the Government of the Czech Republic just a few hours ago, and I am engaging with counterparts across the world who are looking at what we are doing on our SMR down selection and our wider nuclear road map with envy. They are looking to copy, to the extent they can, the processes that we are undertaking in this country, so that they too can build their civil nuclear capacity, generate enough nuclear power to be energy-independent and reach their net zero objectives, which, of course, is good for the entire world.

We know that nuclear developments can have a profound impact on a region’s economic prospects, ensuring that communities directly benefit from investment by delivering high-paid and secure jobs in many places where they are in desperately short supply. As such, we have a strong relationship with the Welsh Government and local communities. For example, the Anglesey energy island forum, co-chaired by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, has supported a positive and constructive dialogue that brings the different levels of government together. There is particularly strong interest in and support for nuclear power at the Wylfa site in north Wales. The Prime Minister himself has said that Wylfa is a strong site for new nuclear. Although he stressed that no decisions have been made on individual sites, he said that it remains a strong and good candidate—one of several sites that could host nuclear projects in the future.

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