NUCLEAR SUBSIDIES AND SCIENCE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FUNDING

That this House recalls that the current Energy Minister, Lord Truscott, and his predecessor, the hon. Member for Croydon North, as Ministers at the Department of Trade and Industry, have asserted on numerous occasions that no public subsidies for construction, operation or liability management of radioactive wastes will be provided for any new nuclear plants for which applications are made for planning permission from private sector investors; notes that the Department of Trade and Industry has now clawed back a significant proportion of the £68 million allocated to the scientific research councils to pay for unpredicted radioactive waste liabilities from the privately owned British Energy power generator, and believes that this decision by the Department of Trade and Industry serves to undermine assurances that the nuclear industry can stand on its own financial feet and as a warning to this and future governments that nuclear power always requires subsidies, direct and indirect, and is thus an economically unsustainable and insecure form of energy.