Ed Miliband MP: speeches

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Speeches

10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his long-standing advocacy on the issue, including when it was not popular. He makes a very good point: we need to see a change in Government in Scotland, to a Labour party that will advocate for nuclear. The supply chain in all four nations of the UK can play a crucial role in the nuclear renaissance that we are announcing today.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend characteristically puts it incredibly well. The nuclear industry offers us a model of good employee relations, and there is a good, strong role for trade unions in ensuring safety and guaranteeing good terms and conditions for workers. That is a lesson that other parts of the energy industry, including the renewables sector, can definitely learn from.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that in all respects. Sizewell alone will create 10,000 jobs at peak and 1,500 apprenticeships. For good safety and other reasons, there is a strong trade union tradition in the nuclear industry, which we intend to uphold. As for the situation in Scotland, it genuinely beggars belief that the SNP would turn its back on such a huge opportunity.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend makes an important point: across the lifecycle of nuclear and across the supply chain, there are important economic opportunities. The importance of realising that potential is a constant theme of the questions that we have heard today, and that is what we intend to do.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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Absolutely right—there will be no decommissioning of you, Mr Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend on showing incredible leadership for his constituents on this issue. It has been a pleasure to work with him and other colleagues on these questions. He is right about the potential; he is also right about the regulatory question. We have some of the highest standards of regulation in the world, but it is always right that we look at how we can improve standards of regulation and avoid changes in regulation during the course of projects, which is crucial for success. That is the work we are getting on with.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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The right hon. Gentleman raises an important issue; let me take this away. As we embark on this golden age for nuclear, we need to make sure that the supply chain really benefits. Perhaps he could furnish my Department with the details so that we can think about how such companies can benefit?
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on that question and on the new centre, which is incredibly appropriately named. We should celebrate our history on these issues, and the way to honour our history is by building the future for nuclear—that is what today is all about.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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On the nuclear point, there is real potential at Sizewell. I understand the implication of his views on that: to learn from what happened at Hinkley—because it is a replica of Hinkley—and therefore to cut the costs and do it quicker. The aim is to deliver it cheaper and faster. On the wider picture, we may have a difference of view. Mine is that we have to get off insecure fossil fuels as quickly as possible. That is why nuclear has a role and renewables have a role, but the existing North sea fields will be kept open for their lifetime, so oil and gas will continue to play a role in our energy system.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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The right hon. Gentleman and I have been discussing these energy issues for about 17 years since he was the spokesperson on this, and agreement is rare between us, so I really welcome what he says. I would say to him that these are the steps we have to go through to deliver, and they are incredibly important. To reassure him on his point about the Economy Minister in Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Energy Minister will be meeting them next week. We believe that this can benefit all four nations of the United Kingdom, and it is 100% our intention to make that happen.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend raises an important point, which is that this is about planning for the long term to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels, which are insecure. We saw what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine. Let me give the House one fact: if the Sizewell C plant had been up and running at the time of that crisis, bill payers would have saved £4 billion in 2022-23 alone. That is the security that new nuclear can give us.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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As part of the process that we go to from here, Great British Energy Nuclear will look at what is the right place for the SMR fleet and, absolutely, Oldbury is one of the candidates.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To get slightly into the weeds, the new planning framework that we are consulting on opens up possibilities for new nuclear. Today we have set out the public money that we can commit to new nuclear at this stage. We are seeing this a bit in the US and in other countries with a 50% increase in nuclear investment last year globally. My message to the private sector is that if it is interested in partnering with us and saying to us, “We want to build in places other than those where you’ve put the public investment,” we are absolutely open for business and dialogue.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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I thank my right hon. Friend for her incredible advocacy on this issue, including at the AMRC. She makes such an important point: this will be taxpayers’ money, and we need to ensure that as much as possible is built in Britain. I make absolutely no apologies for saying that. The answer to her question is that as we negotiate terms with Rolls-Royce over the coming months, that will be a key part of our discussions.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend raises such an important point. There is a good tradition of apprenticeships in nuclear. I have seen it at Hinkley Point C and we will see it at Sizewell. I am sure, and I will make sure, that we will see it in the SMR programme as well. These are fantastic opportunities for young people and opportunities that we intend to make happen.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman puts it incredibly well. That was certainly my impression when I went to Hinkley Point C, when I saw the impact that it has on the local economy. We want to do the same at Sizewell C. There are plans to start a local college, modelling in a way some of the stuff that was done at Hinkley Point C. He is so right about the massive opportunities here, which we must exploit.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend speaks very well on this subject. I agree with him about the huge jobs potential from new nuclear and the timelines. My priority when we came into office was to get these things over the line, because there had been so many promises made by the last Government. Long-term promises were made under Boris Johnson for 2050, but they did not deliver anything towards the 24 GW target. My priority was to get on and deliver these things and get them over the line, which we are doing. Then we can look at what the energy needs are going forward and how we meet them. I agree with my hon. Friend that nuclear has an essential part to play, alongside all the other clean energy technologies; electricity demand is going to double by 2050, so we need all of them.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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Yes, we do. Again, we are open to discussions with the hon. Lady and other colleagues.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I feel bad about mentioning this, but she has slightly airbrushed out the role of the current leader of the Liberal Democrats, who was Energy Secretary for a period, but we will “Trotsky”—to use a familial term of origin—that out of the record. I sincerely welcome her support for this programme, and she puts the case very well: it is a lesson to some of the Opposition Members sitting behind her that we need all the clean energy technologies; we should not choose between them. Being in favour of nuclear does not mean that we are against wind. I am the biggest enthusiast for offshore wind, onshore wind, solar and all these technologies. Let us have all of them, to get off fossil fuels and meet our electricity and energy demand.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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On the latter point, yes, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman of that. He asks a typically astute question, if I may say so. The truth about these technologies, I think, is that the answer is both. We cannot really make a judgment about this until we see the SMR programme developed. The SMR programme offers something that has eluded nuclear for a long time, which is modularity and replication, and that, as we know from other technologies, is the way to bring down costs and speed up delivery. There is huge potential in both, but large-scale gigawatt can also play an important role.
10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source
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Maybe a change in the SNP’s position is coming. Absolutely, if the hon. Lady wants, let us have a discussion about Scottish nuclear power stations. We are in favour of the Acorn project and will say more about that in the coming weeks. But on nuclear power, SNP Members have really got to think again. They are sticking their heads in the sand. This is about jobs, investment and clean energy. They should really rethink.
29 Apr 2025 · Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend, who is also a really powerful advocate for his constituents, is absolutely right. Project Willow was left on the shelf by the previous Government. We put the money in to take Project Willow forward and we are now going to implement it. Absolutely crucial to that is ensuring the skills of oil and gas workers are properly used in the future, including with the skills passport which also lay dormant under the previous Government and which we are powering ahead with.
29 Apr 2025 · Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation · Hansard source
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As the hon. Lady will know, we inherited this situation from the last Government, but we set aside £200 million to build the future in Grangemouth and we are working closely with the Scottish Government on precisely that, in a Government-to-Government collaboration. As for the hon. Lady’s wider question about industrial energy prices, we should obviously look at what different sectors are saying. A lot of nonsense is being talked about steel. UK Steel has said categorically that the difference between our prices and those of continental Europe is a result of our reliance on natural gas power generation. [Interruption.] Opposition Members say “Rubbish”, but that is what UK Steel has said, and that is why our clean power mission is right for families and right for business.
29 Apr 2025 · Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation · Hansard source
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That is very much part of our plans. As the hon. Gentleman will know, in March we announced the provision of more than £55 million for the expansion of Port of Cromarty Firth to create offshore wind supply chains in this country, and last week, along with GB Energy, we announced that investment of £300 million in supply chains. We are determined not just to generate offshore wind in Britain, but to take advantage of the huge economic opportunity that it represents.
29 Apr 2025 · Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is talking about a very important issue, and Grangemouth has a very important role in Scotland. What I will say to him and to others is that as soon as this Government saw the situation that they had inherited, they put money in to help the workers, and they have made that huge investment commitment of £200 million, working hand in hand with the Scottish Government, so that we can build the future in Grangemouth. We are absolutely committed to building the future for Grangemouth communities, and we look forward to working with my hon. Friend and other Members on both sides of the House to do that.
29 Apr 2025 · Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation · Hansard source
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The hon. Lady raises a really important point. That is why we are working with the Department for Education to make sure we do not just have a clean power plan that will help to create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country and invest in supply chains, which I talked about earlier, but crucially offer opportunities for younger workers and inspire them about the possibilities that are available, and create opportunities for older workers, too. All that work is ongoing in Government.

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