Unite: On a visit to Sellafield union leader urges the Government to push ahead with nuclear energy
While meeting workers at Sellafield today (22nd January), Derek Simpson, the joint leader of Unite, will urge the Government to push ahead with the nuclear re-build programme to reduce Britain’s household bills, create jobs and end our reliance on oil and gas from countries like Russia.
Mr Simpson will welcome the Government’s commitment to nuclear energy as a key part of its low carbon and secure energy policy.
Unite’s Joint General Secretary, Derek Simpson will say:
“Pushing ahead with Britain’s nuclear new build addresses the real concerns of real life people. They want cheaper household bills.
“Building a new generation of nuclear power stations and clean coal-fired power stations will create 10,000 jobs in manufacturing in the UK. Nuclear energy can reduce our reliance on foreign gas and oil, and start to reduce household bills by 2015. It won’t be popular with the Russians, or the French or the even the Greens but they don’t vote Labour.”
Unite is campaigning to ensure the UK’s manufacturing industry carries out the majority of the work associated with any new nuclear reactors to be built in the UK. The union fears that the UK’s dependency on imported oil and gas from Russia will be replaced by a dependency on France to supply our nuclear technology.
The union also supports clean coal and carbon capture technologies and is calling for financial support in terms of research and development. Again, the UK manufacturing industry in the UK must be fully involved in this work programme.
The Government’s support for a new generation of nuclear power stations and the increasing significance of renewable technology means there will be huge demands for people with craft and technical engineering skills. There are major projects taking place over the next 20 years starting with the refurbishment of Aldermaston, the building of clean coal power stations and carbon capture projects and nuclear decommissioning at Sellafield and Dounreay.
Unite backed the government’s recent announcement to expand apprenticeships with an extra £140 million being made available to fund an expansion of 35,000 apprenticeship places in 2009-10.
Mr Simpson continued:
“The workers at Sellafield are highly skilled. These are the sorts of jobs that we need to nurture in the UK. We must encourage our young people into engineering disciplines and also offer adults who may have missed an opportunity earlier in their lives to come into engineering and undertake apprenticeship training.”
ENDS
Contact Ciaran Naidoo on 07768 931 315 or Richard O’Brien on 07768 931 320 to arrange an interview with Mr Simpson.
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