Euratom Membership

David Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) on securing this important debate.

The nuclear industry is important to the north Wales region, as it is to the whole country. However, I take issue with the hon. Gentleman because he said that the decision to leave the Euratom treaty was taken on political rather than legal grounds. He will know from the helpful briefing note supplied by the Nuclear Industry Association that that is disputed. The view I take is that the Government had no option but to leave the treaty.

It is worth analysing the way in which the relevant treaties have moved. The Euratom treaty was extensively amended by the treaty of Lisbon, although it continues to have a separate existence from the EU treaties. Most significantly for the purpose of this debate, article 106a of the Euratom treaty, as amended, now provides that article 50 of the treaty on European Union, which of course provides for the departure of a member state from the EU,

“shall apply to this Treaty.”

Article 106a also provides:

“Within the framework of this Treaty, the references to the Union…or to the ‘Treaties’…shall be taken, respectively, as references to the European Atomic Energy Community and to this Treaty”—

that is the Euratom treaty. Thus the Euratom Community and the European Union share a common institutional framework, including the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, a role for the Commission, and decision-making in the Council.

That common framework is acknowledged not only in the treaties but in domestic British legislation. Section 3(2) of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 provides that any Act that refers to the European Union

“includes... a reference to the European Atomic Energy Community.”

The position, therefore, is that article 50 notice of withdrawal from the European Union would automatically have operated as a notice of withdrawal from the Euratom treaty. That is acknowledged by the British Government, and, just as importantly, it is the position of the European Community.

I must therefore take issue with the hon. Member for Ynys Môn. I acknowledge the importance of the industry, but we need to look at the legalities, which appear, on balance, to have been accepted by the British Government and the European Union. Although I fully agree about the need to avoid the cliff edge, I think that the Government are fully aware of the matter and will address it. The hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, which has been made repeatedly recently, that the decision was political, was ill founded.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

When my right hon. Friend talks about avoiding the cliff edge, does that mean he would support a transition period while we remain members of Euratom?

[Mr Jones]

The Government’s position has always been that there should be an implementation period, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will acknowledge that and outline what the Government will do. My purpose in speaking in the debate is simply to point out that the suggestion that the prime considerations are political is essentially unfounded.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

Those thoughts are contradicted by the enormous investment that the European Union has put into the Culham facility and is committing to.

Moving back to the benefits of Euratom, it oversees the transport of nuclear fuel across the EU and enables vital co-operation on information, infrastructure and the funding of nuclear energy. It provides safeguarding inspections for all civilian nuclear facilities in the UK—a point made well by the hon. Members for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) and for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who was right to say that if we get this wrong, it will have an economically crushing impact on the UK. Euratom is the legal owner of all nuclear material, and is the legal purchaser, certifier and guarantor of nuclear materials and technologies that the UK purchases. That includes our nuclear trade with the United States.

As has been highlighted this week and by other Members, including the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), Euratom also plays an important role in our NHS. A Conservative Member questioned that point, but I take the judgment of the Royal College of Radiologists, which has expressed genuine concern that cancer patients will face delays in treatments if supply is threatened. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) highlighted the National Audit Office report on the risks to Hinkley Point. In all areas, our membership of Euratom is vital.

Indeed, the Government stated that they want to replicate the arrangements we have with Euratom. They have talked about probably the exact same benefits, in the way that they have about the trade deal they want in place of single market membership and customs union membership. It is an ambition that they have yet to demonstrate how they will achieve.

Outside Euratom, the Government would have to negotiate individual nuclear co-operation agreements with every single country outside the EU with which we currently co-operate on these matters. Those would be complex, lengthy negotiations within a 20-month framework. I am interested to hear from the Minister how far they have progressed on those. The Nuclear Industry Association has been clear that if we left without them in place, it would be a disaster—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who is a strong champion of these issues.

All this prompts the question: why add this whole other burden to run alongside the negotiations for our withdrawal from the European Union? The bigger issue at play here was summed up very well—I loved the football analogy—by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner): the Prime Minister’s obsession with the European Court of Justice. In that context, it is deeply unfortunate that Ministers from the Department for Exiting the European Union have dodged today’s debate. It is becoming something of a habit. We have had three debates in this and the main Chamber on exiting the European Union since the election. DExEU Ministers have dodged every one. That is an unfortunate habit, because both sides of this House demand a level of accountability that they are not demonstrating they are up for.

Back in February, I challenged the then Minister of State at DExEU, the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), about allegations that it was the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice that had led the Government to issue a notice to withdraw from Euratom alongside the notice to withdraw from the EU. In response he told the House, along much the same lines that he has repeated this morning, that this was not the case. He said:

“it would not be possible for the UK to leave the EU and continue its current membership of Euratom.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2017; Vol. 621, c. 523.]

The right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) and the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) have expressed the view, which many of us share, that legal opinions are never that straightforward. The hon. Member for Henley made that very explicit.

[Mr David Jones]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned me. He has heard what I have to say. I repeat that the advice that DExEU received was as I have outlined this morning. Does he accept that?

[Paul Blomfield]

I think that there are probably enough lawyers in this place to know that legal advice can go in many ways. It may well be that that advice was received by the Department, but other Conservative Members have made it clear that if the political will exists, a solution can be found.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. On the issue of cross-party consensus, I have to say that I was interested in his earlier contribution about looking for some sort of associate membership of Euratom, which might well involve the jurisdiction of the ECJ. We are making some progress, aren’t we?

Let me come to those in the Government who have contradicted the comments by the right hon. Member for Clwyd West in February. Comments by James Chapman, the former chief of staff to the Brexit Secretary, contradict that statement, and his comments were confirmed by the former Chancellor. They suggest that the nuclear industry, jobs and cancer treatments are being put at risk by the Prime Minister’s reckless and irresponsible decision to make the future of the ECJ a red line in all matters to do with Brexit.

[Mr David Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

No, because I am conscious of time.

All this goes well beyond the issue of Euratom. As the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is no longer in his place, pointed out, it will affect our future in other agencies that we would also wish to be members of, such as the European Medicines Agency. We should start with the presumption that if these agencies are in our interests as a country, we would want to continue to maintain that membership.

We have already seen the obsession with the ECJ undermining discussions on the rights of EU citizens in the UK, and therefore those of UK citizens in the EU27. That obsession will also affect our ability to secure the objective that the Government have set themselves: the “exact same benefits”—I quote the Brexit Secretary—that we currently enjoy in the single market and the customs union.

I hope the Minister will agree to take back to his Secretary of State the clear consensus in this Chamber, and I hope the Secretary of State takes it to the Prime Minister. As James Chapman said, if the Prime Minister does not shift her position on Euratom,

“parliament will shift it for her.”