Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between Alex Norris and Trudy Harrison

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

I thank my hon. Friend. It is important that we hold the Minister and the Department to account, and that we focus on the critical path of recruiting the right number of staff into the ONR and ensuring that the regime is in place when we leave. We need to get on with the job, and the 70-something businesses in my constituency absolutely want us to do that.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady and I were both in the evidence-gathering sitting of the Bill Committee, in which Dr Golshan said that

“we will not be able to replicate Euratom standards on day one.”––[Official Report, Nuclear Safeguards Public Bill Committee, 31 October 2017; c. 7, Q9.]

Is this perhaps a matter of fact, rather than a question of confidence in Britain? In taking this course of action without the safeguard that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) has proposed, we will leave ourselves without the coverage that we need.

[Trudy Harrison]

I have already said that I believe the transition period will happen, as the Prime Minister has indicated. New clause 1 is a delaying tactic, and that is absolutely not what the industry needs. We need certainty, and we need it today. I am pleased that the Department is already acting to recruit to the ONR safeguarding inspectors, who will also have responsibility for safety and security. That seems to me to provide vital synergies of shared knowledge and shared experience across the board in the nuclear sector.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Alex Norris and Trudy Harrison

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 31st October 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Thank you for coming here this morning, Dr Golshan. I understand that the ONR currently has the responsibility for safety and security at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. I am keen to understand how the relationship would work with safeguards.

Dr Golshan: May I start by saying that we do not have the responsibility for CNC; we regulate civil nuclear security. We currently have a safeguards function, as set out in the Energy Act 2013, but it is not a regulatory function. The main purpose of that function is to facilitate the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Euratom in the UK, among other things. The Bill will give us the powers, on a par with safety and security, to regulate nuclear safeguards on civil nuclear sites.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Dr Golshan, you have mentioned the sort of headcount you will need for inspectors. What is your current total establishment, and by how much do you think you will need to grow?

Dr Golshan: We have a small project team that helps us deliver this function. I have a project manager and a project lead, and we have interactions with our human resources department and our IT department, which in itself is a small group. We need to grow this project team in the first instance to enable the project to deliver and go forward. All in all, we have five key people in the project team—project manager, delivery lead, policy lead, myself and a subject matter expert—and the team overall has links with the HR department and so on, as I described. We will need to grow this project team to help us deliver when we come to 29 March 2019, and we are in the process of doing so.