Euratom

Lord Oates Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Teverson for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue again, although I confess that I had hoped that by now the Government would have seen the error of their obduracy and reversed their position on Euratom. The safeguarding regime provided by Euratom and the nuclear collaboration with our partners through Euratom are obviously critical to the civil nuclear power programme in this country. However, I want to touch in particular on the implications for the National Health Service and, most importantly, for all of us who in the future may become patients requiring treatment with medical radioisotopes.

I know the importance of this matter because my partner was recently treated by the fantastic staff at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Fulham. The treatment that he received involved radioisotopes created in a German reactor which supplies the NHS for this purpose. As my noble friend has explained, the inspection, transport and safeguarding of the various stages in this critical process are ultimately overseen by Euratom. I do not doubt that we can create our own nuclear safeguarding regime, although whether we can do it without disruption to the current arrangements and additional and unnecessary costs, with all the potential impacts on the health of the people of this country, is, at least, unclear.

In any event, why on earth would we want to go to the trouble of withdrawing from an organisation which has been effectively providing nuclear safeguarding for our country for the past 40 years? What is the point of it? There is none. Not only will we involve ourselves in costly and unnecessary duplication, but in the end we will have to work out the means of a collaborative relationship with our nuclear partners in Europe. This doubtless will involve some mechanism of dispute resolution. Why do we not simply stick with what we have?

There has been much discussion in this House about the motivations of those who voted to leave the European Union. The truth is that none of us can ever fully know; all we know is that they voted to leave the EU. As my noble friend has pointed out, that does not mean leaving Euratom. To my knowledge, no noble Lord—even the most ardent Brexiteer in this House—has ever attempted to assert that anyone was driven to vote leave by their refusal to tolerate for a moment longer the continued involvement of the United Kingdom in Euratom. It is an obvious nonsense.

I do not want to leave the European Union. I think it is a disastrous move that will render this country permanently poorer. But if we are to leave, it would be good if we could do it in an intelligent manner, not in an ignorant, obdurate and absurd fusillade of bullets into feet. Nothing better encapsulates the wanton recklessness of the current approach to Brexit than this dogmatic determination to pull the UK out of Euratom. The public is looking on with increasing concern at the Government’s failure to grasp the details and grip the realities of Brexit. A change of direction on Euratom would at least be some small demonstration that the Government are capable of moving beyond slogans to a serious and considered approach to the most complex and important negotiations that any government has had to undertake for more than half a century.