Speeches

Paul Flynn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what discussions he had on nuclear power with (a) his Chinese counterpart and (b) other members of the delegation of the Chinese prime minister during their visit to the UK in June; what matters were agreed; and if he will publish texts of any such agreements reached.

Michael Fallon

My rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State met with Premier Li and various Chinese companies to discuss areas of on-going cooperation within the nuclear power sector. During these discussions the UK and Chinese Governments signalled a deepening of their partnership on civil nuclear energy through the signing of a joint statement on civil nuclear power.

Alongside this, HMG have signed a Four Party Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Civil Nuclear Fuel Cycle Supply Chain with the INS, CNNC and CAEA to further cooperation across the civil nuclear backend fuel cycle, creating potential commercial opportunities for UK companies.

Both countries see the importance of working together on the UK’s nuclear new build programme, China’s own domestic civil nuclear programme and in third country markets, to maximise the billion pound opportunities this presents for both UK and Chinese companies.

Both the joint statement and Four Party MoU are published on our website at

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/multimillion-boost-to-uk-economy-as-china-and-uk-government-sign-civil-nuclear-agreement-and-sign-agreement-to-deepen-cooperation-on-climate-change.