In just one word of support - “Moorside”- Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, , speaking at the Labour Party Conference in
Brighton on Tuesday, undermined the
progressive energy policy outlined by her colleague, Shadow Chancellor John
McDonnell, in his own keynote speech to the same conference on Monday (“The Energy
Transformation is happening now!”, 25 September; http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-energy-transformation-is-happening.html).
Long-Bailey, in stressing the importance of
investment in “our energy, transport and digital
infrastructure to make it fit for the 21st Century, told the conference: “When
we promised to take the radical action needed to tackle climate change, and
ensure that 60% of our energy comes from low carbon or renewable sources by
2030. To support projects like Swansea tidal lagoon and Moorside nuclear plant.”
(http://press.labour.org.uk/).
In backing the
Moorside new nuclear station in Cumbria, on a site adjoining the Sellafield nuclear waste plant, she also aligned
herself with the discredited former Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary Sir Ed
Davey, who backed the go ahead for new nuclear plants during the Coalition
Government, and the most extreme right wing anti-EU Tories, who hate deals
with European industry, but accept with
acclamation nuclear plants being built by bankrupt nuclear vendors Westinghouse
from the US and Toshiba in Japan, funded by inward investment from the Chinese
Communist State Investment Bank.
Last week, the Daily
Telegraph reported (“China
mulls Moorside nuclear rescue deal to deepen roots in UK plants,” 19 September 2017; www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/19/china-mulls-moorside-nuclear-rescue-deal-deepen-roots-uk-plants/):
“China’s
state-backed nuclear company is hoping to take an equity stake in the troubled
£10bn Moorside new nuclear project being developed by debt-hit Toshiba.The
Japanese conglomerate is on the hunt for a project partner to safeguard
Europe’s largest planned new nuclear plant after France's Engie abandoned its
support of the venture in the wake of Toshiba’s spiralling financial
woes.China General Nuclear (CGN) confirmed that it is in the running to shore
up the 3.8GW project in exchange for an equity share, in a move which would also
deepen its stake in the UK’s nuclear ambitions.”CGN told Reuters “We are
willing to utilise our experience in nuclear design, construction and operation
for more than 30 years to support the development of Britain’s nuclear
industry. ” CGN thus joins another
foreigh firm outside the EU - South Korea’s
Kepco- which voiced an interest in the
project earlier this summer.
The Telegraph noted “South Korean state-backed utility has
harboured an interest in Moorside since 2013, but said it would want to use its
own nuclear design rather than one made by Toshiba’s Westinghouse nuclear
business. Westinghouse plunged into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US earlier
this year after amassing losses of $9bn (£6.6bn) for Toshiba due to a string of
struggling US projects.
A lengthy approval process by the
Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) would
be required of a Kepco reactor design, which could derail the 2025 start date by at
least two years.
Shortly before the Labour Conference
started, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, n an interview, for BBC Points West, said
he would not rule out a Labour government pulling the plug on Hinkley Point C
unless the nuclear power station was "already built and in
operation". Asked whether Britain's new nuclear power station should go
ahead, Mr Corbyn said: "You have to look at the strike price, you have to
look at the long term implications of it. The government has not yet concluded
on that."
But when asked whether he would pull
the plug if Labour came to power after the station had been built, he said:
"If it's already built and in operation then of course not., adding “"But
I do want to see, I must say, a much greater diversity of electricity
generation." (“Hinkley
cancellation? BBC on line, 22 September 2017; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41359590)
Meanwhile, at a fringe meeting at
the conference on Monday night, a former shadow business and energy secretary, Clive Lewis, who was fired
from the front bench for voting against activating Brexit Article 50, attacked
the vested interests of the big industrial unions in their support for nuclear
over renewables. (“Labour's Clive Lewis
accuses nuclear unions of being 'voice for big business': Corbyn ally says unions are failing to
speak up for renewable energy because they do not have members in that sector;”
Guardian, 26 September 2017;https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/26/labours-clive-lewis-accuses-nuclear-unions-of-being-voice-for-big-business)
Lewis, a political ally of Mr Corbyn, claimed trade unions that are
involved in the nuclear industry have become “a voice for big business” because
they have been weakened in other sectors, and
he singled out GMB for being too close to the nuclear lobby and said it
was not speaking up for renewable energy because it did not have members there.
Lewis told the
Labour Energy Forum fringe event: “One
of the problems with where trade unions are at the moment is that they have
been so weakened that I think they have become, and have been used by big
business as, a voice for big business.
“Because big
business understands that if you have a unionised workforce they also become
spokespeople for you. They create a situation where you have a wide and broad
spectrum politically of people supporting your particular position.
“On nuclear,
yes, GMB and other unions are staunchly supporting it because the jobs there
generate union members. Contrast that to the highly self-employed solar sector:
the unions have no trade unions there. They are not speaking up at all for
them.”
He said unions
had thrown their weight behind plans for Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear
power plant to be built in the UK for 20 years.
“That is one of
the reasons that a big song and dance and hoo-ha about solar wasn’t made by the
unions and yet they are getting staunchly behind Hinkley,” Lewis said.
Ms Long-Bailey
is thus backing pro- nuclear policies backed by big union dinosaurs, by discredited
Lib Dems and right wing anti-EU Conservatives, very uncomfortable bed fellows indeed.
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