Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Main Page: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I remind my noble friend that the skills in the department and the skills that we bring in from outside are hugely specialised in this area. We are gifted with having some of the greatest minds in the nuclear sector within this country, and we should be very proud of that. We have an absolutely fabulous regulator, which is seen in the world as one of the best. So I do not want to undermine the great skills that we have, but we draw on skills from outside the sector, too.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, clearly we have a lot of skills in the nuclear sector in the UK, but let us go back to my noble friend’s Question. The fact is that in recent years the performance of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has been very disappointing, particularly as regards Sellafield. The question is this: given that disappointing performance, should it not have been a question for Ministers as to whether the NMP contract was extended? Why did Ministers not take that decision?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I will return to my first Answer. Ministers were cited after a full review by the NDA and my officials were in on that review; we have been kept informed at every juncture. The decision to go forward with this contract is absolutely right. We are building on the work that has been done. Noble Lords from across the Chamber cannot take lightly the challenges facing the Sellafield site. We are discovering things that were not properly characterised in the inventory and so we have to deal with new challenges as well as with the current ones. We are in a position to see, review and make sure that progress is being made.