European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 31st January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

I welcome this Second Reading to consider the continuing role of the UK Parliament in the future of Europe although, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, the devolved parliaments are also a vital element. Having visited and collaborated with friends and scientific colleagues in countries all over the world, it became ever clearer to me that as the EU has welcomed new member countries and led the world in living standards, science and culture, it has become the greatest union of countries and confederations in the world—and that our small country off the north-west of Europe has been incredibly fortunate to be a leading country in that Union, as well as being a member of the looser network of the Commonwealth.

I suppose that all organisations need reviewing from time to time so, in the light of this general philosophy, it was perhaps reasonable for our Parliament, led by Prime Minister Cameron, to announce in 2013 a review of the terms of the UK’s membership of the EU. This led to the in/out referendum in 2016 that resulted in 52% of voters recommending that the UK should leave the EU. But extraordinarily, following the decision in the referendum, our Parliament did not then insist on moving a Bill to establish the legal framework and government policies for leaving the EU. It took the Supreme Court to tell Parliament to take charge of every aspect of leaving the EU and establishing procedures for the UK to work with the EU. Most importantly, these procedures must be relevant in helping people to move and work across Europe.

The woolly and uncertain government statements about wishing to work with the EU in future have not been enough so now, as other noble Lords have explained, we have hundreds of legal measures in this Bill. The Government apparently want to avoid these procedures and just control the leaving process by autocratic Henry VIII measures, as other noble Lords have emphasised. There is now much to be done to establish myriad measures to ensure that Brexit operates smoothly and openly for the thousands of organisations and millions of people who will be affected. But it has become progressively clear that the terms and conditions for the UK to function in relation to the EU will be quite onerous.

As a scientist, I have had many conversations during the past year with researchers, industry and government agencies. We have already seen the departure of important EU science centres that are in the UK and the movement of leading scientists away from the UK. Many European projects will certainly go ahead with significant UK participation, including Euratom, which will be debated in the House of Lords next month. But the UK may no longer take the leading position and UK industry may lose contracts in these new arrangements.

Other centres which the UK takes a lead on include the European Space Agency and the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts—a major centre here at Reading which, if I may say so, leads to such extraordinarily improved weather forecasts that in the United States they now talk about the European weather. There is currently also funding from the European Commission for these organisations. The tricky and important question, which is not well understood, is whether the UK will make special financial contributions in place of the funding that comes from the European Commission. If not, we will find that many of the guiding strategies and actions of these European agencies in which we are involved will no longer have a UK lead. Norway and Switzerland see this at present; they participate but do not have the leadership role.

The facilities in the UK may also not continue, which would greatly affect UK science, technology and universities. Perhaps even more important is how high-tech manufacturing industry will grow when it no longer receives development funding from the European Commission. These companies are well distributed across the UK, more so perhaps than financial organisations, and many of them work with UK universities. Some of them are already discussing moving some of their operations on to the continent. This is extremely serious for many important industrial communities in the UK. The companies will do this to participate in the most exciting future projects with EU funding.

As we look forward to the next decade, Parliament and the young voters who will then become the majority will realise that there will be progressive disadvantages in the UK’s quasi-independence from the EU. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Mandelson put it, plans may emerge eventually for a second opportunity for UK voters to express their opinions about the possibility of the UK rejoining the EU politically, which might be an element in the interesting play that we heard of from the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I support the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who is an expert on Euro law. Euratom has shown considerable importance for past and future research, and in the practical use of atomic energy. The UK’s research and economy will benefit by continuing membership of and participation in Euratom. As an example, one of the profound scientific issues which will last long after even the EU, perhaps, is what to do with nuclear waste. This was not mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. There was an interesting PQ about 10 years ago from the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, on the question of transmutation. The question was about how we should deal with waste that could last 10,000 or even 100,000 years. Putting it in the ground is one possibility, which is favoured. But Euratom is considering transforming the waste material so that it will have a much shorter life of only around 100 years.

This is the kind of thing we can do with the other countries of Europe, in Euratom—it might be easier and more effective for us to remain. Another issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was the ITER fusion programme. This is a very considerable investment involving many other countries, and Euratom is playing an important role in it. The UK is a part of this. The ITER programme will need to evolve, but it is more likely to do so if we remain part of it. I support this amendment and I hope it will go through.

[Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a supporter of nuclear power and I would like to facilitate nuclear energy in any way I can. However, I am not sure whether the legal forest through which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, tried to take us can be dealt with as simplistically as he suggests. In the first instance, we signed up to a separate treaty when we joined the Common Market in 1973, but by 2008 circumstances had changed. Euratom was by that time integrated into the EU in a way that I do not think renders it the separate entity that the noble Lord has suggested. It is worrying that the Government clearly had not given any serious attention or thought to this. In the course of the last two or three weeks, there has been quite a major change in the climate, in so far as a number of people, myself included, have raised this issue at different times. But we have to recognise that, when we talk about the nuclear industry, we are not talking only about power generation. At the same time, it has to be said that EDF—the agent of the French Government, which I imagine will remain in Euratom—will be running 20 power stations for some years to come. Therefore, in that respect at least, it may be somewhat premature to get too worried about this.

The fact is that the nuclear industry is not just about generation. It is concerned with the fuel cycle, decommissioning procedures, regulatory arrangements for safety and general UK regulatory competence. In all these areas, we enjoy a position of world leadership. The industry gets castigated because we do not build our own reactors any more—we build them for our nuclear submarines, but not for civil generation—but there is an incredible amount of science and manufacturing expertise at stake here. Frankly, I am not too concerned at this stage about whether we are in Euratom, we are going to leave or we have to leave. I am concerned that this industry should demand the proper attention it requires. It has already been suggested that in the Government’s industrial strategy, such as it is, nuclear is going to play an important part. If so, we need to give proper recognition to the international character of the industry and to the fact that a considerable number of British businesses, and considerable British academic and industrial expertise, are still invested in this industry. In many respects, we will be pretty well the only country in the developed world with a nuclear new-build programme. We will see programmes in China and India, and there is one in America, but we do not see the kind of nuclear power development that we might have wished for.

If Britain is to carry on with and take advantage of this industry, the Government will have to give a lot more attention to it. I would like us to get beyond the platitudinous responses which have characterised the Government’s answers in debates and discussions so far. It would be helpful if the Minister gave us a little detail this evening on what is going to be done. How will we address this worrying conundrum of whether we will have a nuclear industry capable of operating on an international basis, and how can we take advantage of the very strong cards we still have to play?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

That was not said about the Labour Party: it was said about a certain person in the Labour Party.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

That was a cheap point from my noble friend. The Labour Party position was criticised and it led to some switching of votes. The fact is that the Conservative Party made a great number of gains by saying that it was the friend of the nuclear industry.

The nuclear industry is a lot smaller than it was. It is, as has been said, a long-term industry. Indeed, one could say that jobs at Sellafield are guaranteed for 20,000 years—which is a pretty good length of time to guarantee a job. Seriously, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is one of the best if not the best in that field in the world, and that will be a very important issue. We have been a world leader in promoting nuclear safety. We persuaded the Russians to accept mandatory safety inspections. All of these matters were through the World Nuclear Association, to which the role of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, is affiliated. We have often led the progress being made—from training, health and safety, investment and so on. So this has to be looked at as a major issue of industrial policy.

Do the Government recognise that there is a legalistic question here? If a country joins Euratom, does that mean that it has joined the European Union? No, it does not. I remember Ireland in 1961 announcing its accession to Euratom, which was a precursor to joining the European Union. But they are not umbilically connected like that. As a matter of industrial policy and of looking at the long term, does this not illustrate that the sooner we get to where we are going to engage positively with the EU in the future, being outside it, to have a real central engagement on all these issues of industrial policy is a very high priority for the country that we have not yet heard enough about.