All 3 Layla Moran contributions to the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018

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Mon 16th Oct 2017
Nuclear Safeguards Bill
Commons Chamber

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tue 23rd Jan 2018
Nuclear Safeguards Bill
Commons Chamber

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tue 8th May 2018
Nuclear Safeguards Bill
Commons Chamber

Ping Pong: House of Commons

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts
2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th October 2017

(6 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Green Portrait Chris Green
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We are very early on in the negotiations, and I am sure the Minister for Climate Change and Industry and the Department for Exiting the European Union will look at that.

The extraordinary aspect of this debate is that some people are saying we will go off a cliff edge and valuable radioactive isotopes will no longer be available. What does that suggest about our friends in the European Union—that they will no longer sell these products, or that they will choose not to allow those products to be sent over to the United Kingdom? It is extraordinary to suggest that such sales will cease.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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Does the hon. Gentleman agree that is not about the EU wanting to give us radioisotopes, but about half-lives? The radioisotopes we are talking about have extremely short half-lives, so any delay at all at the border means fewer patients will be able to benefit from them.

Chris Green Portrait Chris Green
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Yes, I understand that some half-lives can be as short as six hours, so the efficacy of the isotopes will diminish in an incredibly short period. However, to say that the European Union and the British Government are not fully aware of that and that getting such materials from Europe over to the United Kingdom cannot or will not happen is extraordinary.

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Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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As many Members have already pointed out, the Bill should not be needed at all. The most sensible approach to nuclear safeguarding would be for the United Kingdom to remain a member of Euratom, rather than wasting vast amounts of time and money in setting up an alternative regime that the Government admit will be as much a replica of the original as possible. The Government have created a rod for their own back by insisting that the European Court of Justice and freedom of movement are red lines. I wish they would just admit that that is the problem, rather than hiding behind legalese and unpublished, disputed advice.

As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), when most people voted on 23 June 2016, the vast majority did not even know what Euratom was, let alone how to pronounce it. It remains possible that Britain could have taken the option of remaining a member, and it is a political choice to withdraw from it before that has been absolutely set as the legal position. What I am sure of is that the fallout—pun absolutely intended—of this decision leaves a huge gap not only in the country’s ability to safeguard nuclear material, but in many other areas not covered by the Bill.

We are told that the Government will seek a new treaty to replace Euratom, so the Bill is applicable only in the event of Britain’s crashing out of the EU and Euratom with no deal. No deal would be deeply disastrous for Britain, and the Government should not even be considering that option; yet here we are, about to pass a Bill to authorise spending on just that eventuality. Let us give credit where it is due. Given the importance of this issue and the Government’s own lack of confidence in themselves, the Department is doing absolutely the right thing in preparing for the worst—and yes, the Liberal Democrats would vote for the Bill on Second Reading. However, the fact that the Government have produced the Bill so early in the Brexit process shows that they must be genuinely concerned by the complexity of the task ahead and the possibility that the negotiations will fail.

By the way, as we all know, we have not even started those negotiations, and industry experts tell us that it could take up to seven years to negotiate a treaty as wide-ranging as Euratom. Although I have enjoyed listening to the jolly assurances of some Conservative Members—I, too, am an optimist by nature—I fail to see how we are going to do this in time.

Like many other Members who have spoken today, I am gravely concerned about the limited scope of the Bill and the fact that it does not cover the full range of Euratom functions. In particular, I am worried for my constituents. At one time, Abingdon had the highest number of PhDs per square kilometre in Europe, and many of the scientists still work on the Joint European Torus—JET—in Culham. The United Kingdom is world-leading in that area. Fusion technology, if achieved at scale, would be tantamount in technological terms to putting a man on a the moon—it is that revolutionary—and it would be a criminal act to put that position in jeopardy, but that is exactly what we are doing. To ensure its future, we need guarantees about the next phase of the work programme by the middle of next year, months before the Brexit negotiations are completed. This is very urgent.

This is not just about money, as we will, I am sure, be told: to fully participate, we must ensure that these scientists can move freely and collaborate fully and, furthermore, that those already here are enticed to stay. These are the best minds in the world, and I need not remind the Government how rare they are. It is all very well saying that we want them to stay, but we need to give them more certainty than that; they are already leaving.

My constituents, alongside others in the industry, are extremely concerned about the implications of Government decisions on their futures. What kind of associate membership do we want? Will the Minister publish, and consult on, proposals for dispute resolution? Will he guarantee freedom of movement of specialist and technical staff in the nuclear industry? There is far more information that we need from the Minister about these and other areas, and it is worrying that this Bill is so limited in scope.

Kwasi Kwarteng Portrait Kwasi Kwarteng
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Is the hon. Lady seriously suggesting that there would be any circumstances in which well-qualified nuclear professionals would be prevented from coming into this country? Does she think, plausibly, that that is an outcome we might get to?

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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I absolutely do, because we have not had that absolute cast-iron guarantee. I should add that this is not just about the nuclear scientists; it is also about all the support staff who are needed.

Lord Walney Portrait John Woodcock
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My concern is that, as we know, world-class nuclear scientists are a rare and valued commodity, and some nations might not see it as in their interests to open the doors and allow greater exits of people whom they want to keep. It suggests a potentially slightly naive view of the world to think that everyone will just say, “Yes, go to Britain; it will all be fine.”

I will be brief about this, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I forgot in my speech to ask for the leave of the House: unfortunately, a family illness means that I am not going to be present for the wind-ups—but in any case Labour does not seem to be voting against.

Eleanor Laing Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
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I let the hon. Gentleman make a long intervention when I realised that there was a point that he wanted to make. I just want to make the point that this does not create a precedent for long interventions, as it was a special case.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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On funding, the haste with which the Bill has been introduced suggests the Minister wishes to move forward quickly with recruiting and training the nuclear specialists who will be absolutely crucial in the case of no deal, and rightly so for the reasons I have just described, but can he confirm how much he anticipates being spent on implementing these measures and exactly when this spending will begin? Also, how do we know it will be a sufficient sum? The explanatory notes talk about a new IT system; I look forward to scrutinising that in the Public Accounts Committee.

Another concern is the extent to which specifics are being left to regulations, as has been said, rather than written into the Bill. We are starting to get used to that in this House, but that does not mean it is right: it reduces the level of scrutiny over Government decisions and it erodes public trust.

Given that the Minister has said that he wants associate membership of Euratom, but that formal negotiations might currently not take place, will he publish a policy statement on associate status to enable the industry to start to work around such arrangements as they might progress? Also, will these be Ukraine-style, or Switzerland-style—or, as we have heard from the Minister before, will they be even better? Without oversight of the European Court of Justice and with no freedom of movement, I am not sure we are going to achieve even that. I want to share the Minister’s degree of optimism, but I learned in my physics degree that scepticism is also a valuable approach to life.

What about transition? Have the Government given up on that idea, or will transition include continued membership of Euratom? We have heard already how wide-ranging the Euratom treaty is; I suggest that we must decouple the Euratom issue from the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill completely and stop any talk of a cliff-edge on Euratom issues once and for all.

What if this does go all wrong, however? Are the Government even considering that? If Government negotiations fail and we crash out of the EU without negotiating a new agreement with Euratom, we will need this legislation, but we will also need so much more. We keep hearing that it is going to be fine. I feel ever more that this House is being drawn into a scene from “Dr Strangelove”: “How Parliament learned to stop worrying and love Brexit.” Our relationship with Euratom is far too important to take a risk like that.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts
3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018

(6 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 23 January 2018 - (23 Jan 2018)
Ranil Jayawardena Portrait Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
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Although I have not spoken on the Bill to date, I have been following its progress from afar. I rise, unsurprisingly perhaps, in opposition to the proposals that have been tabled by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead). As his county colleague, I have a great deal of time for him, but on this occasion I have to say, with regret, that I believe that the measures would delay the implementation of the vital nuclear safeguarding measures that are facilitated by the Bill and extend lobbying for associate membership of Euratom.

Notwithstanding the uncertainty, instability and safeguarding risks that these new clauses and amendments implicitly condone, the association they appear to grasp at seems to be ideologically driven. Those who still worship membership of the customs union or the single market above all else should see the impossible implications of the measures.

Euratom, which was established by the Euratom treaty, as we have already heard, is uniquely joined to the European Union. It has the same membership. Its budget is part of the general budget of the EU. Importantly, it also makes use of the same institutions and entities: the Commission, the Council and, contrary to everything that we voted leave for—to take back control—the European Court of Justice. That is why this Bill, which will create our own version of things, is so crucial. Providing certainty as we leave is crucial, whatever the deal.

I note that the measures seek some association, but that is no silver bullet. As we have heard already, there is no such thing as associate membership, and hon. Members do not have to trust me on that. If we cannot trust the views of a former president of the Union of European Federalists, who can we trust? I speak, of course, of the former Liberal Democrat MEP, Andrew Duff, and he wrote:

“Euratom is therefore a fundamental building block of the European Union and not an accessory. It cannot be separated out from the rest of the Union. Joining the EU means joining Euratom; leaving the EU means leaving Euratom…There is no such thing as associate membership of Euratom.”

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I simply say that that is not the Liberal Democrat party’s position, even though Andrew Duff may indeed at one point have been a Liberal Democrat MEP.

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Research and development is critical, and it is underpinned by the Bill. I welcome the Government’s emphasising that the decision to withdraw from Euratom in no way diminishes their nuclear research and development ambitions. In fact, I understand they have stated that maintaining and building on our world-leading fusion expertise and securing alternative routes into the international fusion R&D projects will remain a priority. One example is the Joint European Torus programme, a fusion project based in Oxfordshire—my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) may want to comment on it later. The contract is due to end in 2018, but I understand that discussions are already under way with the UK’s European partners to extend it to 2020. If the Government are committed to it, it is right that they continue to guarantee that they will provide their fair share of JET funding up to 2020 in order to extend the contract.
Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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My constituency lies on the boundary of the Culham centre. The point the staff there are making to me is that this is about not just funding but being able to access the crucial networks of researchers and get the right talent in the right places. Does the hon. Gentleman concede that this will suffer in the short term, unless we get certainty now?

Ranil Jayawardena Portrait Mr Jayawardena
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I will perhaps answer the hon. Lady’s point in a roundabout way. When I visited Switzerland—I should refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I was impressed to understand that Switzerland, despite having never been part of the EU, was one of the largest recipients of joint funding, because it had the brains to excel at driving technological innovation forward. One of the other biggest recipients of such funding was the UK. A third was Israel, which has never been part of the EU and has very few agreements of the sort that Switzerland has with the EU. Switzerland has some agreements with the EU, and we are leaving the EU. All three nations have great expertise and should continue to strive to ensure access to the networks that this technology and these innovations rely on.

Another such project is the international thermonuclear experimental reactor, a project to build a magnetic fusion device. The agreement was signed multilaterally by China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US. It is absolutely right that the UK continues to support such projects. I also understand that the Government have announced an £86 million investment to establish a nuclear fusion technology platform with the aim of supporting UK industry in obtaining contracts for just such projects.

We need to underpin that commitment and funding with some clarity today, however, which is why an additional transition period would be the worst of both worlds. The unique legal status of the EU and Euratom during that period would mean we would not be part of Euratom but would simply be seeking an association with it, or indeed an R&D-only association contingent on free movement and the European Court of Justice—if we are to base our position on Switzerland and refer to it in the wrong terms, as some Opposition Members have done. At the same time, however, we would be unable to enact our own safeguarding measures to underpin all that is good about our nuclear industry—the innovation we have supported and the jobs our young people deserve. I do not believe the new clause stacks up, and I will not be supporting it today.

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Drew Hendry Portrait Drew Hendry
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No, I am going to make some progress. I may come back to the hon. Lady, but we will have to see.

Many of those workers will need to be skilled in the nuclear industries, yet current policy does not support the ability to get those workers if there is no concession on the movement of people, but achieving even that is put into a harsh light when it comes to getting highly specialist staff to meet the new safeguarding functions. Those positions are already challenging to fill. Nuclear inspectors do not live on every street—in fact, they are very rare—and they are in global demand. The Minister says that such staff are required only in the tens, but can he tell me today how many are in place? I offer him the opportunity to intervene. He was asked in November about recruitment. I am trying to get his attention, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will he tell us how the first phase has gone? I will offer him another opportunity to intervene and tell us how many recruits are in place. Is it 15? Is it 10? Is it five? Is it one? Is it none? How many nuclear safeguard inspectors have been set up?

Prospect and Unite the union have given evidence, and Ms Ferns from Prospect said:

“A reasonable approximation is several years—it is not a matter of months but years for people to be able to do that job…It is a small talent pool…even in the best of times.”

Many Members today have cited the testimony of Dr Mina Golshan, the deputy chief inspector and the director of the Sellafield decommissioning, fuel and waste division in the Office for Nuclear Regulation. She has said:

“I have been very clear from the outset in previous evidence sessions, and in discussions with industry as well as BEIS, that it would be unrealistic for us to expect to achieve an equivalent regime to what is in place currently by the time we officially leave Euratom, and that is March 2019.”

The BEIS Committee report, “Leaving the EU: implications for the civil nuclear sector”, states:

“To deliver the new domestic regime the ONR will need to double the number of its inspectors by 2019, and triple its numbers by 2021. Skilling-up the new recruits on time will present additional challenges, as even existing specialists will require 12-18 months of training to become an inspector, and generalists may need five years.”

Those are hefty timescales.

Let us look at the cost. So far, the Government have earmarked £10 million for all the operations in Euratom, yet we can already see that there are going to be much more expensive consequences for the UK. That £10 million figure is dwarfed by the £50 million of Euratom funding that the UK receives for the Joint European Torus project—JET—so it will be interesting to hear from the Minister how that funding is going to be replaced. Leaving Euratom and the JET project has been described as “bonkers” by Steven Cowley, a physicist at the University of Oxford and a former director of the Culham centre for fusion energy, which hosts JET. He is absolutely right. Can the Minister tell us how that funding will be maintained?

Can the Minister also tell us about our future in ITER, the project to build the world’s largest tokamak? The ITER agreement was signed in 2006 by China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US, and the building of the tokamak has been under way in France since 2010. The official start of ITER’s operation is scheduled for December 2025. Euratom also funds DEMO, a demonstration fusion power reactor planned to follow ITER by 2050. The UK is a key participant in ITER and sends information, results and design studies from its JET programme to the French site. This co-operation will continue throughout the Brexit process, but it is unclear what the impact of Brexit will be on this co-operation and the continuation of these programmes. Perhaps the Minister can advise us on that. We need to know all this information. Without it, we will need safeguards in place.

The hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), who is no longer in its place, mentioned medical isotopes. He said that it was scaremongering to say that they would no longer be available, and that treaties would be in place to allow access to them. However, the critical point is not whether people can get the isotopes; it is that they have a very short half-life. Sometimes they have to be used within hours of being produced in order to maintain their effectiveness. If they are sitting at a border point because there is no customs agreement, they will be completely useless. Will the Minister tell us how we are going to put in place the necessary customs arrangements to prevent that from happening?

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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The issue is that we are leaving the single market and the customs union. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, even if we have a customs arrangement, the fact that we are leaving the single market is what will cause the delays? As he rightly points out, the half-life of those radioisotopes will mean that fewer people will be able to be treated by them.

Drew Hendry Portrait Drew Hendry
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Without alternative arrangements to allow the free movement of such goods across borders, there will be considerable complication and delay, which could affect patients.

As it stands, it is a risk too far to leave Euratom without cast-iron guarantees. I respect the Minister and heard his messages of hope about having people in place. I heard him say that he would like to ensure that that will happen, but we have had no guarantees about the set-up or whether it will be in place. There are no figures and no definite timescales, and we have heard nothing from the industry to suggest that it is satisfied. Without cast-iron guarantees to protect such things, we know that the new arrangement will cost us more, deliver less and diminish our influence. Given the evidence, it is hard to see even how it could be delivered.

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Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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I find it hard to believe that we have finally got to this point, having attended every sitting on the Bill, apart from the Public Bill Committee. As a former physics teacher, I must say that it has been wonderful to hear so many Members talk about all things physics. That is always a pleasure.

The Liberal Democrats and I will, of course, be supporting the Bill, but I do have some questions that I hope the Minister will answer. I echo what has been said across the House about the constructive way in which the Bill has gone through. I appreciate that. As a relatively new Member, this is how I imagined Bills would pass—with lots of conversations, concessions and so forth—so I thank him for that.

It seems to me that the House has achieved broad consensus on most parts of the Bill, and that the Bill is necessary as a contingency measure. I am all for having a contingency planning mechanism to deal with matters that are out of our control, but I think it worth my saying again that we did not have to be in this position. We did not have to leave Euratom—or, at least, the legal case is still being contested. If the Government have been told otherwise and it is set in stone, I ask them to release the legal advice, which would put that argument to bed.

My constituents, many of whom work in the industry, are still crying out for certainty and clarity, but time is running out. I know that the Minister disagrees with the Liberal Democrats’ position of wishing to stay in Euratom, but I urge him to reconsider. So much about the Brexit process seems to be groupthink at its worst. We can still change our mind, but if we are not going to do that, we should at the very least make the crucial admission that this is about the red line of the European Court of Justice. That is the critical issue: that is the main red line that we are not allowed to cross. It was a choice, not a fact, that that was a consequence of the referendum.

If the Government cannot or will not change their mind, I am reassured by what the Secretary of State said in a written statement earlier this month about seeking the closest possible associate membership, and by his warm words about the Joint European Torus and the international thermonuclear experimental reactor—not least because those contracts will be worth billions to the UK over the next few decades and are vital to the local economy, particularly in the Abingdon area of my constituency. He also seeks

“open trade arrangements for nuclear goods”,

the ability to ensure that materials cross borders “without disruption”, and

“maintaining close…cooperation…on nuclear safety.”

It is true that Euratom does not directly govern the issue of radioisotopes, but the Minister will be well aware that I am still deeply concerned about the issue. The institution of “a” customs union, rather than “the” customs union, will put blocks at the border, and, because of the short half-lives involved, there will be disruption unless we are very clear about how we will mitigate it.

I look forward to the regular updates that the Minister has said he will give, but has he considered increasing their frequency, at least to begin with? One of my main concerns is that while the Brexit negotiations will continue until the start of next year, Austria will take over the presidency of Euratom very soon, and the heavy lifting really ought to be done before it takes the helm, because there will some problems for us. Will the Minister consider giving more frequent, earlier updates to let us know how the negotiations are going before Austria takes over? The issue is causing a huge amount of consternation throughout the industry, and throughout the House.

As the Minister knows, to ensure that the JET has a future we need to guarantee the 2018-19 work programme by the middle of this year. Again, I should like some updates on how we are to achieve that. It is not just about the money; it is also about ensuring that nuclear scientists have full access to the schemes in the future, not just in the next two years but in the next five and 10. We also need some assurances, albeit not from the Minister’s Department, about the movement of nuclear scientists. Those assurances are not yet written in stone, but this matters to the scientists, because they are extremely saleable.

I accept that the Bill is needed, because it is better for us to be safe than sorry, but I wish that we did not have to do this at all.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts
Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th May 2018

(5 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Amendments as at 8 May 2018 - (8 May 2018)
Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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Does the hon. Gentleman agree that while some of the safeguards the Minister mentions might well work, it would be easier to stay in Euratom until such time as everything is concluded so that there is absolutely no way we would fall off any cliff edges? Does he agree that “may” is not good enough in this scenario?

Alan Whitehead Portrait Dr Whitehead
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The hon. Lady makes the important point that to have the full protection of staying in Euratom would be the best thing to do, not just on nuclear safeguarding but on a range of other civil nuclear activities, until we are absolutely certain that we have ticked every box and ensured that we have alternatives that are as good as what we have under Euratom. That, very largely, is what Lords amendment 3 seeks to do. It seeks to ensure that there is recourse to the full covering arrangements of Euratom if those boxes have not been ticked.

After waiting until the very last moment to tell us that Lords amendment 3 is not needed and will be opposed, the Government have finally come up with an amendment in lieu of their own that suggests that perhaps a fall-back plan is needed after all. Its wording is, in many respects, very similar to Lords amendment 3. It places the signing of these treaties as the essential element in securing the transition to a full nuclear safeguarding role without Euratom, and specifies, as amendment 3 does, what they are. That in itself is a considerable victory for those who counselled for this over a period of time, and is a substantial turnaround from the Government’s previous position. But, at the last, the amendment falls short. It places the option to decide not on whether principal agreements have been signed—for that will be evident, or not, at the time of departure—but on what one might call an interim stage on a fall-back which provides for circumstances where, at the beginning of a period of 28 days prior to exit, agreements may not have been signed and completed, but will in the Secretary of State’s opinion have been so signed before that 28-day period is up. In other words, there is a very abbreviated, but nevertheless significant, period during which the Secretary of State will decide whether treaties are going to be signed. That will, in effect, be putting off the relevant request to the European Council for an extension of the time during which Euratom provisions hold, because the Secretary of State thinks it is, after all, going to be all right. That is a far shorter period than under the original general provisions that the Secretary of State said he would try to organise and get right in time for exit from the EU, but we are still back to that assumption that it will be “all right on the night” with no complete plan B in place. I accept that the amendment in lieu proposed by the Government comes a very long way, and that it has taken a considerable amount of U-turning, if we want to call it that, to put in place these arrangements, but in reality it is not quite far enough.

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Stephen Kerr Portrait Stephen Kerr
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I do not think it does. The Minister has made it clear during the passage of the Bill that although we are leaving the European Union and our membership of Euratom will therefore end, we still want as close a relationship as possible with Euratom. The Government have been absolutely clear in their determination on this. They stated in a written statement published last September that

“it is vitally important that the new domestic nuclear safeguards regime, to be run by the Office for Nuclear Regulation, is as comprehensive and robust as that currently provided by Euratom. The government has therefore decided that it will be establishing a domestic regime which will deliver to existing Euratom standards and exceeds the standard that the international community would require from the UK as a member of the IAEA.”

I hope that the Minister will reconfirm tonight that it is still the Government’s intention to reach and maintain existing Euratom standards in respect to safeguarding. I recognise that it will take time to get to that point, but it would be useful if he indicated when he expects we will able to assume that we have everything in place to maintain the Euratom safeguarding standards, and if possible, how much that will cost.

I also commend my hon. Friend on his success in progressing towards his objective of putting in place what his amendment in lieu describes as “principal international agreements” and “corresponding Euratom arrangements”. These principal international agreements refer to and include the nuclear co-operation agreements that we will need to maintain because it is on the basis of these agreements that nuclear goods, including intellectual property, software and skills, can be moved between the UK and other countries. The Select Committee report summarised the evidence we heard and concluded that nuclear co-operation agreements were

“expected to depend on the existence of a mutually acceptable UK safeguards regime. Witnesses were concerned about any potential gap between leaving Euratom and setting up new arrangements, which would cause considerable disruption to nuclear supply chains”.

We also heard that

“nuclear cooperation agreements with the US, Canada, Japan and Australia will be crucial for maintaining existing operations and should be prioritised.”

I welcome the news that the Minister has brought to the House tonight about the IAEA, the draft voluntary offer agreement and the additional protocol. I also welcome the US-UK nuclear co-operation agreement. Perhaps he will give us more detail on how long it will take for the agreement to be ratified. I referred earlier to the optimistic note that David Wagstaff, the head of Euratom exit negotiations at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, brought to our Committee, where he indicated that the co-operation agreements were

“well advanced and…would be completed in time for our departure.”

I have heard again tonight that that means March 2019.

With reference to the principal international agreements, perhaps the Minister will update the House on our negotiations with Canada, Japan and Australia. Will all Euratom’s existing nuclear co-operation agreements continue to apply to the United Kingdom until such time as new agreements can be established? It is vital that our civil nuclear industry can continue to operate with certainty and that there should be minimum to no disruption to the sector as we leave the European Union. Britain must be in a position to continue to honour its international obligations—

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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Will the hon. Gentleman explain what “minimum” would be acceptable? I do not feel that any minimum disruption would be acceptable; for me, no disruption is the only possible scenario. What would his minimum be?

Stephen Kerr Portrait Stephen Kerr
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Lady is right to pick me up on those words, and I am grateful for her intervention. Because the Prime Minister has successfully concluded the implementation agreement with the European Union, the minimum that we should settle for is no disruption, especially in this sector.

I was about to say that we as a country must be in a position to continue to honour our international obligations, and to be the responsible nuclear state that we are. The importance of this Bill, with this amendment, is that in the event of there being no agreement with Euratom, which is not what we want, it will enable the United Kingdom to be in a position to act as an independent and responsible nuclear state. That is why the amendment should command support on both sides of the House.

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Kwasi Kwarteng Portrait Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
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I am grateful for the opportunity to speak tonight as I spoke in this important debate at an earlier stage—on Second Reading. I was pleased to hear the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who gave a good, comprehensive analysis of why civil nuclear power and the nuclear industry are so important, not only to her constituency but to the country as a whole. In this debate, we tend to get forgetful about the immense contribution Britain has made to the nuclear industry and nuclear science. At the beginning of the 20th century, we had people such as Thomson and Rutherford, and others in the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge and at other universities. They pioneered nuclear technology and advances in the nuclear industry. It is sad to hear speeches in this House that yet again undermine, frustrate or seek to question our capacity to get this right and to institute safeguards.

In that regard, the Bill is an excellent piece of legislation. It is sensible and it tries to construct a framework that will allow us to leave Euratom and go our own way. After all, we are members of the International Atomic Energy Agency—it has a structure and about 169 countries as members—and we should celebrate that. To hear people in this Chamber, one would think that without Euratom we were absolutely nothing and there would be no safeguards and no industry. We have heard the doom-mongering prophecy of thousands of job losses, to which the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) alluded in his mildly entertaining speech. We have had all these bugbears and goblins, and all this terror, held before us, but we are taking a simple step: we are going to leave Euratom and institute our own Bill, as we are doing, that will provide for safeguards in the industry. We also have the IAEA as a backstop. All this fear-mongering and these doom-laden prophecies of job losses are grossly exaggerated.

The other thing to say on the amendments is that in eight years in this House I cannot remember a Government who have been so accommodating and open to amendments as we have been on this Bill. In general, we see Governments, including the one of which I am a member, rejecting amendments; sometimes the amendments make sense and often they do not. In this instance, I have been surprised and impressed by the fact that our Front Benchers and the Government as a whole have adopted many of the amendments proposed in the Lords.

I want to talk a little about the House of Lords amendments and the processes they are going through. The job of scrutiny that the Lords are doing is good, but in the context of Euratom and debates about the EU there is a suspicion—I am not saying that all the people in the other place are influenced in this way—that a lot of these debates and institutions are being set up as straw men with which to block Brexit. When people say we should stay in this or that institution, there is always the suspicion of it being a rearguard fight to reverse the decision of the referendum of June 2016 and somehow to stay in the EU by other means. I am not suggesting the majority of their lordships are influenced by that, but in these debates there is always the suspicion that people are trying to use proxies and excuses to prolong our membership, unnecessarily, of these European institutions.

Euratom is a creature not of the EU but very much of the philosophy that was underpinning countries of western Europe coming together. I believe Euratom was established in 1957, roughly at the same time as the treaty of Rome, but we did not actually join it until 1973. To hear some of these speeches, one would think that we had no nuclear industry and no nuclear expertise before we joined Euratom. As I was trying to suggest, that is, of course, completely false.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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Would the hon. Gentleman perhaps concede that he has misunderstood the amendment? It says that its provisions would be invoked only if everything had not been agreed. It does not say that we would stay in Euratom in perpetuity; it simply says that we would stay in until the point at which every single i had been dotted and every single t had been crossed.

Kwasi Kwarteng Portrait Kwasi Kwarteng
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I accept that it is a clever amendment. I accept that on the face of it, it says that it is just a backstop, there purely to ensure that if we do not have the right treaties in place we get to stay in Euratom forever and ever, but the hon. Lady and I know that the people who composed the amendment do not expect all the relevant treaties to have been signed in the short timeframe available. I suggest, perhaps cynically—perhaps the hon. Lady will challenge me on this—that the clever amendment is simply a ruse to prolong our membership of Euratom. Call me an over-cynical man of superstition, but a lot of my constituents, if they pay any attention to this issue, would come to the same conclusion.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me a second go. In a sense, we are all rooting for the Minister, in the hope that he will come to a complete set of agreements in time. We all want that, and as soon as he does that, the amendment’s provisions will no longer apply. There is no issue, because if it all happens, it is fine, and even if it does not happen, the amendment will no longer apply as soon as it does happen. I do not understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument; it does not make logical sense.