In December 1979, in the wake of the industrial disputes of the Winter of Discontent and the 1979 oil crisis, the new Thatcher government announced a new long-term nuclear power programme. The existing state National Nuclear Corporation would complete its existing planned second generation AGR builds, and would develop a new programme of building one Westinghouse designed Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) per year for at least a decade from 1982 (about 15 GWe in total). However, in 1981 the Select Committee on Energy and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission produced reports criticising the CEGB and government's demand forecasting and investment assessment justifying the programme. From 1982, after Nigel Lawson replaced David Howell as Secretary of State for Energy, the government began rowing back from this large proposal, in part because the government were beginning to consider privatising the electricity industry. The Electricity Act 1989 provided for the privatisation of the electricity industry, introducing the Fossil Fuel Levy to support the nuclear power industry which was exempted from privatisation and vested in Nuclear Electric.