Government reveal nuclear power station plans

1.48.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 11th Jan 2008

Liberal Democrat Anti-Nuclear "100,000 Years" campaign cartoon.

A new generation of nuclear power stations was yesterday given the go-ahead by the government. The business secretary John Hutton told MPs that the new stations must be built to ensure future security of supply and help produce a balanced energy mix. Mr Hutton said that private operators would be expected to meet the full cost of building nuclear plants, decommissioning and disposing of waste. He insisted there would be no subsidies from the UK government. Conservative spokesman Alan Duncan welcomed the Government's commitment to nuclear power, despite the party having previously said it should be a 'last resort'.

Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat Environment spokesperson said "The Government should abandon these expensive white elephants and focus on increasing energy efficiency and the use of genuinely renewable technologies. This has effectively locked us into nuclear power for the best part of a century. By the time they are up and running in the 2020s nuclear power plants may be obsolete given the progress in renewable technologies. Energy conservation and investment in renewables should be our top priorities."

The whole nuclear argument distracts from the reality that we must take urgent action now to conserve our energy supplies and improve energy The ultimate goal should be a carbon neutral Britain by 2050, and you can read how the Liberal Democrats would achieve this in our policy Carbon Britain, 'Zero Carbon Britain',which can be found at:http://www.libdems.org.uk/media/documents/policies/zero%20carbon.pdf