To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what factors underlie the length of time scheduled for generic design assessment work on the three nuclear reactor designs identified as suitable for construction in the UK; (260248)

I have been asked to reply.

The factors affecting the length of time that generic design assessment will take are given at paragraph 24 of the joint guidance “New Nuclear Power Stations, Generic Design Assessment—A guide to the regulatory process”— published by HSE and the Environment Agency in August 2008. These include:

The content, quality and timeliness of the submissions;

The completeness of the design;

The introduction of design changes;

The significance of assessment issues arising;

The responsiveness of requesting parties to issues and questions;

The availability of resources to the regulators;

The ability to make best use of information from overseas nuclear regulators;

The number of designs being assessed in parallel; and

The experience of the regulators with similar reactor designs.

Given that resource is only one of these factors, the HSE does not believe that it is feasible for its Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) to complete GDA in half the time presently scheduled, irrespective of the numbers of staff or resources available.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress has been made on generic design assessment work proceeding on the (a) AP100, (b) economic simplified boiling water and (c) UK EPR designs for nuclear reactors; and if he will make a statement. (260335)

I have been asked to reply.

The nuclear regulators have completed GDA Steps 1 and 2 for four reactor designs (AECL's ACR1000, Areva's European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR), GE-Hitachi's ESBWR and Toshiba-Westinghouse's API000) and a series of reports were published on the Health and Safety Executive's website in March 2008.

ACR-1000 and ESBWR have been, respectively, withdrawn and suspended from the GDA process at the request of the vendors.

HSE's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) is currently part-way through step 3 of a four step assessment process. NII aims to publish its step 3 findings in November 2009 and its step 4 findings in June 2011.

The Environment Agency (EA) is also part way through its detailed assessment process. EA aim to publicly consult on their initial findings in 2010 and publish their final reports by June 2011.