Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Rebecca Pow

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitehead]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that strong point. I recall that even the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) suggested during that debate that associate membership of Euratom could be effective in continuing those arrangements, which have served us so well over many years.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has referred to the International Atomic Energy Authority. The Government have made it clear that we will be seeking new arrangements with it and that they will follow exactly the same principles as the current arrangements—that is, the right to inspect civil nuclear facilities and to continue to receive all the safeguards and reports. We should be confident that this Government are going about the issue in a serious, sensible and meticulous way.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Lady makes the case for our new clause. If the Government are going about their business in a sensible and coherent way—I note the Secretary of State’s statement on 11 January on how the Government intend to go about conducting relationships with Euratom—it would be a good idea to place that procedure into the Bill, so that we can be clear about what we are about, what we want to achieve and how we will do so.

After all, it has been stated that this is a contingency Bill. We want to know what it is a contingency against and therefore how it should be framed in terms of what we should be doing in contemplating whether to bring it into operation. If we had either membership of Euratom or an associate form of membership, which might be fairly similar to that enjoyed currently by Ukraine but with a number of additional factors, this Bill would not be needed. The arrangements with Euratom would continue to be in place, rendering the Bill superfluous. We need to be clear about what we are debating.