European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan 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?

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I refer to a report of the Science and Technology Select Committee from a few years ago, when I was its chair, on the subject of nuclear R&D in this country. In doing so, I support this group of amendments. In the report, we asked: given that the UK is committed to a civil nuclear programme and a refreshing of nuclear energy generation capability, do we have the skills in this country to deliver—not just in overseeing the build by foreign companies, but in the regulation? When we heard evidence from the witnesses, we realised that such capability in the United Kingdom has been seriously eroded. Here are some numbers: the workforce in nuclear energy and nuclear science decreased from 8,000 in the 1980s to under 2,000 by the early part of this century. Our investment in nuclear R&D is half that of the Netherlands and Norway, one hundredth that of France, and less than that of Australia, which does not have a nuclear energy programme at all.

Traditionally, we have not been investing enough in nuclear R&D capability. Therefore, the research capability sponsored through Euratom is, I believe, crucial to the future of our civil nuclear programme. In our report, we said:

“The nuclear industry and the regulator rely on the research base to train the next generation of experts. Once lost, these capabilities will not easily be replaced”.


It is important that the Government reassure us that, if we are to withdraw from Euratom, which I do not think we should, we have a mechanism in place to ensure that that nuclear capability is being developed. The Select Committee report made 14 recommendations, the vast majority of which the Government accepted. One was that the Government should set up a nuclear R&D strategy board. Has the nuclear R&D strategy board been consulted on this issue, and what is its view?

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan (Lab)]

My Lords, as a remain voter my first reaction was to consider opposing the Bill and voting against it if the opportunity arose. However, given the view expressed in the elected House, that is not an option. In some respects, I am here to abstain in person at this stage. What has concerned me since the vote is not so much why we did not get these issues brought out and addressed in the debate but more the exposure of unintended consequences. We seem to be encountering difficulties that nobody thought about before.

For example, the European sub-committee for policing and security, on which I serve, discovered that the European arrest warrant would be one of the casualties of our departure. This is an eminently sensible means of avoiding lengthy extradition processes and it brings prisoners speedily to justice. If we go further, UK involvement in police collaboration through Europol will have to end. Neither of these involves great financial cost, so the health service is not going to benefit. They are largely irrelevant to the free movement of people, apart from accelerating the process of moving accused from one country to another. The fact is that the withdrawal of the UK’s participation in both schemes will make our country less safe and our criminal class more comfortable, to the contradiction of all the hopes about defending our shores and having the ability to pass our own laws.

This was evidenced when the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, in opening the debate, spoke about another of these “Oops” issues, as it were, that we did not really anticipate were going to happen. She devoted a paragraph of her speech—in the context of the length of the speech, this was quite a generous contribution to the debate—to the Euratom treaty. We joined Euratom at the same time as we joined the Common Market. The two are now inextricably linked as they have been integrated into EU institutions, so we find that Article 50 requires us to leave not only the EU but Euratom.

The noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal was less than fulsome in the assurances that she sought to give us. She said:

“Our nuclear industry remains of strategic importance and leaving Euratom does not affect our aim of maintaining effective arrangements for civil nuclear co-operation, safeguards, safety and trade with Europe and our international partners”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 13.]


One of the consequences of leaving Euratom will be the termination of British participation in the fusion projects at Culham. This is a scientific project of enormous significance, one in which Britain has historically played a significant role. It will to an extent be overtaken by the establishment of the ITER programme in France in the next two or three years, but our contribution and the significance of British involvement in this will be of massive importance. I will not trouble the House by reading out the White Paper in its entirety. Suffice it only to give the title of paragraph 10:

“Ensuring the United Kingdom remains the best place for science and innovation”.


The pious wishful thinking is there for all to see.

The point is that as far as the nuclear industry is concerned, there is far more involved than simple power generation. We enjoy a significant presence in a number of these areas. Once we are outwith Euratom, though, our ability to co-operate will be very limited. As I say, this is only one example of how our negotiators are likely to be encumbered by these—as I call them—“Oops” issues, the issues that we forgot all about. If we need any argument for the accessibility of Ministers coming to this House and providing us with clear indications of what the emergent problems are, the examples I have shown are crystal clear.

I am not arguing about arrest warrants or Euratom. I am making the point that this is an issue of process. That is what the legislation is about: improving the process whereby we can make the Government of the country—our negotiators—more accountable, clearer and more disciplined in the manner in which they go about it. Rather depressingly in this debate, from the introductory speech onwards—I have quoted the example of Euratom—we have had a thoroughly misleading approach to this whole issue. If that is the way the House is going to go and that we are going to be treated then we need to amend the legislation, and as quickly as possible.