The Government's discussion with the public about the country's future energy needs moved up a gear today with the start of an extensive programme of nationwide consultative events.

A series of twelve regional stakeholder events are being held over the summer to capture the views of green groups, energy companies, businesses, consumer groups, unions, faith groups and academics.

In addition, a major deliberative exercise involving a demographically representative sample of 1,100 UK citizens will be held in September in nine cities across the UK.

Attending the first stakeholder event, today in Newcastle, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said:

"Keeping the lights on for the decades ahead while also cutting carbon emissions is one of the biggest challenges of our time. The Government's Energy White Paper sets out a range of responses, including increased energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage and more renewable generation such as offshore wind farms.

"The Government also believes that new nuclear power stations should be an option for energy companies in the future, but we want to consult as widely as possible on this before making a decision.

"We're part way through a 20 week consultation and I want as many people as possible to feed into that via the interactive website. Over the summer months, starting here in Newcastle, we'll be taking the debate directly to more than 1,500 people up and down the UK.

"This is a big decision with consequences either way. It's critical that we listen to all the views and get it right."

The deliberative exercise, involving a demographically representative sample of 1,100 UK citizens, will take place simultaneously in nine cities across the UK on Saturday 8 September.

Viki Cooke, Joint Chief Executive of Opinion Leader Research said:

"The deliberative events are designed to give participants information about the issues and time to debate and discuss them with others. We will use a wide range of interactive techniques to engage participants and help make the information accessible.

"Each event will be demographically representative of the region or nation where it is being held, enabling us to build up a robust picture of the general public's views at a national level."

The consultation is running for 20 weeks in total, significantly longer than standard government consultations. The Government has commissioned a range of specialist organisations to conduct and evaluate the consultation.

As well as the stakeholder events and deliberative exercise, other important elements of the consultation are:

* A consultation document, 'The Future of Nuclear Power', was published on 23 May electronically, in hard copy, in Welsh, Braille, audio and large print. This sets out over more than 200 pages the range of issues relating to nuclear power and asks for responses to 18 key questions by 10 October.

* A dedicated interactive website went live in parallel - http://www.direct.gov.uk/nuclearpower2007. This is designed to make the consultation document as accessible as possible, splitting it into sections with dialogue boxes to capture views as respondents click through. 550 responses totalling more then 1,500 pages have already been received.

* A series of meetings with existing nuclear site stakeholder groups to hear from those who live near existing sites.

* Ministerial roundtable events in September to hear from leaders of business, City investors, unions and environmental groups about their
views.

* Direct mail to more than 5,000 grassroots and community organisations to raise awareness of the consultation among local authorities, business networks, student unions, the Women's Institute, faith groups, volunteer groups, science groups and professional institutions.

* An information advertising campaign in national and regional newspapers to inform members of the public about the consultation and how to respond.

* Other ad hoc engagement with relevant organisations, for example attendance at the Youth Parliament in Strathclyde to hear from its members.

In total it is expected that 1,500 people will be directly consulted at events throughout the summer. All responses to the consultation will be published. The Government will make a decision on the issue of new nuclear power later this year.