Caroline Lucas has responded to an investigation exposing serious failings at the Sellafield nuclear processing plant. The BBC's Panorama programme found parts of Sellafield regularly have too few staff to operate safely and that radioactive materials have been stored in degrading plastic bottles. The programme was told that parts of the facility are dangerously rundown.

Caroline, who become Green Party co-leader on Friday last week alongside Jonathan Bartley, said: 

“This investigation by Panorama makes clear the genuine dangers associated with nuclear waste processing. We know that there will always be risks linked to this kind of dirty energy production but to see basic minimum standards not being met at Sellafield is profoundly alarming. Nuclear power is the energy of yesterday – and this distressing case adds further weight to the case for a clean, renewable energy revolution that puts power production in the hands of communities and takes it away from the centralised fossil fuel and nuclear power stations of the past.”