Published at 15:59, Wednesday, 09 July 2008

BUSINESS minister, John Hutton, has told a Labour party fundraising dinner that the, "UK-US nuclear renaissance" could mean new reprocessing deals for Sellafield.

MINISTER AND THE MAYOR: John Hutton with Copeland’s mayor, Keith Hitchen, at the Summergrove function.

Mr Hutton was special guest at the Copeland Constituency dinner, at Summergrove, near Whitehaven, on Friday evening.

The minister will shortly be asked to sign-off the selection of the preferred bidder to run Sellafield Ltd on behalf of the government's NDA.

At the Labour function, local trade union leaders rubbed shoulders with senior executives from all the powerful US multinationals, one of which will take charge of the Sellafield workforce. The Sellafield contract is thought to be the biggest tendering deal in the world this summer.

MP Jamie Reed and local constituency party boss, John Woolley, welcomed and introduced the minister. Mr Hutton spoke of the background to the government's commitment to new nuclear power plants when he said energy security was a key factor; "Not just with reference to Mr Putin but also the fact that we get most of our hydrocarbons from a most unstable region."

He added that the "electorate are always right and they rightly want us to look to energy security."

"This is the time for nuclear... but how do we get to the top of the world queue for new nuclear? We have got to be clear with investors that we will clear away all barriers... we can't afford 10 years to be spent on planning inquiries... we don't have that luxury."

"There is a cracking future for nuclear and could be thousands of fresh jobs."

He also said the industry was open to new reprocessing contracts. The overall growth in nuclear he described as "green collar jobs".

Sharing the top table with the minister was Copeland Council’s Labour leader, Elaine Woodburn.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk