Science and Technology Committee: Nuclear Research and Development

Lord Winston Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, I never thought that I would, in these hallowed places, praise the Daily Mail. However, last March, just over a year ago, Michael Hanlon, the scientific correspondent, did a great public service in demonstrating the fact that the Fukushima disaster should not turn us away from nuclear energy. He pointed out on 31 March, just three weeks after the accident, that 20,000 people had died in the flooding but nobody had died as a result of the nuclear explosion. He pointed out too that nuclear workers who were trying to deal with the problem might, with their protective suits, at worst—I am speaking as a biologist—have an extra 1% or 2% chance of developing a cancer as a consequence. He pointed out that, at Chernobyl, far more people were killed as a result of a reaction to the explosion than as a result of the nuclear reaction itself. One of the things that Mr Hanlon pointed out in his various writings on the subject was that politicians—I am not referring particularly to British politicians—really ought to have known better, and that we actually need to be much more aware of a balanced view about nuclear power.

I say all that because one of the things that our report focuses on is the issue of public engagement, and the issue of public understanding of what is involved. This is still an issue today. Only yesterday, there was coverage in the Welsh papers about Wylfa B and how PAWB is congratulating itself that the Minister is now dead in the water with his plans for it, while the Minister—Mr Hendry—was pointing out that he would persist with his plans for that part of the world. People have to understand that nuclear reactors actually release less radioactive material than do coal-fired power stations, and that if we abandoned nuclear completely it would increase the amount of nuclear radiation around us.

I have just come back from the Cheltenham Science Festival. It is an amazing event which lasts five days, where scientists from all over and outside this country come to present their various sciences to the public. What was so dissatisfactory and disappointing was that at this outstanding festival—it is probably the best public engagement in the world at a science festival—in 200 representations, events, lectures and various symposia, there was not a single one on nuclear fission. EDF was present with its tent. As the Minister will know, EDF spends some €350 million a year on R and D in this area, and it spends 8% of that in the UK. At this meeting, EDF said privately that it cannot find enough young people to help it with this research and go into the industry. That links in pretty well with what the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, said about our need to link with industry.

Certainly, talking to various young people doing nuclear physics at that meeting in Cheltenham, it was obvious that there are some really outstanding scientists. One of my colleagues, who trained at Imperial College, for example, clearly had an extremely promising career but now cannot find any post-doctoral or further research position to continue her work in nuclear physics. This is a terrible blight on our young generation, as it is when we come to recruiting PhD students. With the extreme tension at the engineering office of the sciences research council and the fact that in real terms we have lost 16% of our budget, it is massively difficult to see how we can really maintain this expertise in which we led the world. Only 40 years ago, we were spending nearly £500 million on research in this area. Under different successive Governments—no one Government are to blame—we ended up spending probably a post-doctoral scientist’s research salary and a bit more besides, which is really quite shocking. It is now slightly creeping up, but the pressure is massive and not one that can be undertaken with the constraints that apply to our two research councils most involved in this area. There is also a clear need that if we are really to have the public behind us and with this very important initiative, we have to be seen to be listening to the public much better than we have been doing. Aspects of public engagement have been pretty unsophisticated, and they need to include a recognition that we as scientists have to show our responsibility and concerns about the ethics of what we do and involve social scientists in government to work out how best to do that. This is still a major problem.

Recently in a debate in the Chamber, the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, argued that we on the Select Committee are not interested in social sciences. I am afraid that he is mistaken. So much of the work that we do is involved in social sciences, and we take it very seriously. Of course, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has also tried very hard to get involved with things like dialogue and better public engagement and has tried to support it a great deal. But it is really very important that the Government do that. If we do public engagement with the issues involved in nuclear, it is actually a generic area; the skills we would learn from this contentious area apply increasingly to a whole range of technologies as science develops and becomes increasingly important in our society. I hope that the Government can do something towards this and do what is essential to make this a much more acceptable technology, which will I hope be better funded in consequence.