UK and EU Relations

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I got some information from one of the EU 27 embassies today that Brexit negotiations are to be postponed for at least one week. I would be interested to hear from the Minister why that is, whether it is for one week and what that means for the negotiations. My noble friend Lord Wallace also mentioned the security and defence paper, which came out today. Having in the past chaired the EU Sub-Committee on External Affairs, what struck me about the paper was that it is far more constructive about co-operation than we ever are as members of the European Union. This is somewhat ironic; I am sure the EU will go on to produce its own defence HQ and all those things that we so long resisted not to detract from NATO. These are interesting times.

As the Minister might have guessed, I want to talk briefly about Euratom. Perhaps I may say some positive things. I welcome the fact that the Government appear to be giving this some priority. It is mentioned in the science and research future partnership paper and two technical papers have been produced on Euratom, so we have some progress.

However, like many other Members of the House, when I looked through most of the papers coming from the Government—the same is true to a degree of the Commission papers as well—they seemed to me no more than A-level or undergraduate standard at the most in terms of their analysis and the way they went through the headings. All the detail one was looking for to get a clue about the way forward was missing.

I remind Members of the House of all the things that have to be sorted out about Euratom. There is the small issue of a safeguarding regime, which Euratom fulfils at the moment; without this we cannot trade nuclear fissile materials, whether they are medical or nuclear-powered to keep our lights on, or related to nuclear waste processing. We cannot do anything in that area until we have the International Atomic Energy Agency’s tick as a safeguarding authority.

We also need a number of nuclear co-operation agreements with our main trading partners, whether they are providing nuclear material to help us develop our nuclear fleet or to keep our existing fleet going. Then there are those important agreements with the United States, Australia and some of the central Asian countries; they all need to be negotiated. As for our research, which I will come back to, there are, not least, JET, ITER and the future of our contracts with other countries to consider, to make sure that trade can continue, let alone our ownership of fissile materials. Who owns and takes responsibility for them?

There are so many of these issues still to be tackled and I would be interested to hear from the Minister how they are proceeding. Returning to the Government’s paper, I welcome the high-level principles it contains in terms of strategy, but what are the Government’s high-level principles? The principles set out in the paper include ensuring a smooth transition to the UK nuclear safeguards regime. I agree with that; it becomes necessary because of our removal from Euratom. We did not need one before, and it will be an additional cost.

Providing certainty and clarity to the industry is another principle. As the industry sees our withdrawal from Euratom, it will certainly need that detail. Regarding collaboration on nuclear research, it is interesting to see in the paper, in relation to JET— which is hosted at Culham in Oxfordshire and is an important part of our work—that the Government say that if the JET extension is agreed by the Commission,

“the UK will underwrite its share of JET contract costs after it leaves the EU”.

That takes us up to 2020. It does not seem a generous offer. It is just saying, “We’ll continue doing what we do if you pay for all the rest”. I am not sure this sets out a positive view. Also, the Government are asking for the minimising of barriers to nuclear trade for industry, ensuring the mobility of nuclear-skilled workers and collaborating on areas of wider interest.

I agree with that list, but what is the easiest solution? It is to stay in Euratom, which is something we could have done but decided not to. I accept that that is where we are, but I ask the Minister whether we could look for an associate membership of Euratom. I think that would be a way forward, albeit second best.