Euratom Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Bradshaw
Main Page: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bradshaw's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, I live on the nexus of three constituencies, and nearby are Culham, Rutherford and the whole business at Harwell. Lots of people from abroad work there. They have families here and they will be greatly affected by any withdrawal.
The people at the top of the tree in all these things have interchangeable skills and will go and work elsewhere if they cannot work here on a collaborative basis. I underline this: everything in the university and at the research establishments is collaborative work and is funded by the EU on that basis. The free exchange of ideas and the free movement of these people are axiomatic to this continuing.
There is also a top-down element: the people working in this are in the shape of a pyramid. At the top, a few hundred are internationally acclaimed scientists. Going home from Didcot station the other night in a taxi, I asked the taxi driver, “What will happen to you if these institutions cease to exist?” He looked at me a bit funny and said, “Well, we will get a lot less work and a lot of us will lose our jobs”. That fact goes right down the supply chain. A thousand people work at Culham, but only some 150 are these top-flight people, and the employment of the rest of the people is in jeopardy.
Last night, I read the views of one of the three MPs who represent the area. A Conservative MP said:
“Last week, I began a campaign to urge the Government to retain our membership of Euratom after we leave the European Union … Retaining membership will best serve the national interest—as has been unequivocally stated by representatives of the UK nuclear industry—and I hope that ministers are listening to the genuine concerns being raised”.
Whether people like to admit it or not, there is increasing pressure—and it will come from Conservative Back-Benchers, who are threatened by issues such as leaving Euratom and the effect on employment in areas which depend on that, and a lot of other high-quality research.