Sir Julian Lewis: Assuming that the large nuclear power station at Sizewell C and the small modular reactors both prove to be successful, as we trust they will be, what is the Government’s thinking about the respective roles of each of those two very different types? Which does the Secretary of State think will be the better bet in the long term for the future of the country? Can he assure us that China will have no part in any of this?

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband): 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.]