Off-site Manufacture for Construction (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Broers Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I too compliment the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the Science and Technology Select Committee on their report. It clearly describes the benefits of off-site manufacture and the degree to which it has been adopted by our construction industry. It goes on to make comprehensive and sensible recommendations about how we might make greater use of off-site manufacturing, all of which I strongly support.

I was pleased and not surprised to find from the report that we are internationally competitive in the high-rise sector of construction and I was disappointed, but again not surprised, that we lag behind in the low-rise residential sector, although there are signs of improvement. Paragraph 58 quotes Ann Bentley of Rider Levett Bucknall as saying that in the low-rise residential sector we were,

“substantially behind Scandinavia, North America and Japan”.

That is my experience. This field of engineering is far from my own as I am a microelectronics engineer, but I have followed it with interest because of its potential for improving the quality, speed and cost of construction. I was not surprised that we were leaders in the high-rise sector, as in general we have a high reputation internationally for large construction projects. In the low-rise residential sector, our building techniques have seemed slow and old-fashioned compared with what I experienced in the USA many years ago.

I lived in the USA from 1965 until 1984. In 1974, I designed a weekend home in Jamestown, Rhode Island, using templates provided by a company specialising in what were called modular homes. I did not carry out a detailed architectural design, of course, but I was able to determine the size, shape and layout of the rooms, provided they were rectangular, and the height of the ceilings and whether they were sloping or horizontal, and could determine where the appliances and bathroom fittings were. A few weeks later, a large truck with a team of four or five construction workers arrived, and within two days the house appeared, complete with its roof. Within another couple of days, the windows, doors and roof shingles were in place. All the wall units, doors, windows, roof trusses and flooring had been precisely manufactured in a factory. Of course, the foundation had to be completed beforehand and the finishing of the house inside took a local builder several months. This was 44 years ago, and the house remains in good order and has required almost no maintenance. I was not a pioneer in doing this, as my friends in the US had told me even back then that this was the way to proceed if I did not want a fully custom-designed house. Modular homes had a reputation for being lower cost, stronger and of higher quality. So it appears we have been behind for quite a long time.

The lack of adoption of off-site manufacturing seems to be the result of the fragmentation of the UK construction industry, as mentioned by many speakers, and the separation of design and engineering. This separation has damaged all branches of engineering but is especially serious in the construction industry. It appears that oversight of the construction industry is spread over a number of government departments, including BEIS, the Department for Transport and the Treasury. The Building Research Establishment has reportedly characterised the number of public sector bodies with an interest in construction as “a completely fragmented mess”.

As outlined so clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Mair, there is hope that the new sector deal for manufacturing may help sort out this mess. Let us hope so. It may also ensure that the skills we need to innovate in the application of off-site manufacturing are available—this was also mentioned by many other speakers.

I emphasise that there are many other areas where off-site manufacturing is important and the safest and most environmentally friendly way to proceed. I am thinking in particular about small modular nuclear reactors—a pet subject of mine—which we have discussed a great deal over the last few years but on which the Government have regrettably been unable to make up their mind. It should be possible to build these reactors off-site, thereby ensuring quality and reducing cost. The Minister, answering an Oral Question on nuclear power from the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, mentioned on Monday that the nuclear sector deal outlines a new framework designed to encourage industry to bring viable small-reactor propositions to the marketplace. I ask the Minister whether there is a timetable for evaluating these propositions. The Government’s procrastination on this matter has already seriously eroded any lead we might have had with these reactors through Rolls-Royce’s experience with them in Trident submarines. It is important that we proceed as soon as we can to actually build an SMR and realise the benefit that they may be manufactured off-site.

Nuclear Energy

Lord Broers Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. I am somewhat encouraged by what the Minister said because, in the situation we find ourselves in now, where storage of carbon dioxide is not going well—we have made scarcely any progress—and it is now obvious that batteries are far too expensive to back up wind on a national scale, we are left with nuclear, so it is extremely important that we proceed as quickly as possible. I have to admit that when I talk to Chinese engineers they feel that if we replicate an EPR we can do it at 30% less money than the initial venture, which means that if we combine that with the cost of wind properly backed up, which is about £60 per megawatt hour, we can do the same with nuclear. So should we not get on with all speed, but maximising our own contribution by including the small modular reactor?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, there was an awful lot to answer in the noble Lord’s question, but I think he is right to emphasise the importance of nuclear. It provides some 20% of our electricity requirements, and obviously in a low-carbon manner. We are also looking for cost reductions in new-build projects and I am glad that the noble Lord emphasised that. In our nuclear sector deal we are looking for cost reductions of some 30% over the next 15 years or so, as well as cost reductions in other areas. He is also right to emphasise the role that wind can play and the fact that the cost of wind is coming down.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, as the House is aware, the amendment in lieu was proposed by the Government in the House of Commons in response to Amendment 3 made on Report in this House. Although the Government opposed Amendment 3 on Report, my honourable friend Richard Harrington and I have listened very carefully to the arguments and concerns put forward in both this House and another place about ensuring continuity for the nuclear industry. I hope that this amendment in lieu exemplifies the commitment to compromise and to engaging with Parliament that I believe the Government have demonstrated throughout the passage of the Bill.

Amendment 3 would have required that, where particular agreements relating to nuclear safeguards were not in place on 1 March 2019, the Government would have to request that the UK’s withdrawal from Euratom be suspended until those agreements, or continuation arrangements, were in place. This amendment in lieu would, like Amendment 3, apply 28 days before exit day, on 1 March 2019. Under this amendment, if any principal international agreement were not signed and no other equivalent arrangements in respect of unsigned agreements had been made or would be made before exit day, the Secretary of State would have to ask the EU for,

“corresponding Euratom arrangements to continue to have effect”,

in place of the unsigned agreements. The relevant agreements are those on safeguards between the United Kingdom and the International Atomic Energy Agency—the voluntary offer agreement and the additional protocol—and the four priority nuclear co-operation agreements with the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia.

Although the Government were not able to agree to Amendment 3, the House of Commons has made this amendment in lieu, which I hope the House will agree addresses its concerns on this matter. I beg to move.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, as one whose name was on Amendment 3, it gives me pleasure to support the replacement of that amendment with Commons Amendment 3A. The Commons amendment supports the basic proposals that we put forward in the Lords amendment but is more detailed and will better ensure that, if adequate agreements are not in place 28 days before exit day, the Secretary of State must request the continuation of the present Euratom arrangements. Amendment 3A more tightly defines the request that the Secretary of State must make and the relevant principal international agreements, and seeks to eliminate other possible ambiguities.

I would also like to say how much I welcome the Government’s acceptance of other Lords amendments, particularly the one that specifically points out that civil nuclear activities for peaceful purposes include production, processing or storage activities, electricity generation, decommissioning, research and development—a particular interest of mine—and any other peaceful nuclear activities.

Overall, I observe that the way this Bill has been handled is an excellent example of what can be achieved when there is constructive collaboration between the political parties, we Cross-Benchers and even between the Lords and the other place. Our parliamentary system has really worked well in this instance and it is my sincere, if naive, hope that this admirable spirit of collaboration continues throughout the consideration of all of the other Brexit-related Bills.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I am also very pleased that we have come to a suitable arrangement. I support this amendment and reflect the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Broers. However, the challenges in achieving this are still major. We know from the leak from the risk assessment of the Office for Nuclear Regulation that we have an IT system that has only just been commissioned and timescales are very short for that £100,000 programme. We know that training has not been fast or easy in terms of recruitment or giving skills to those people to ensure that we have the right number of people in the Office for Nuclear Regulation. We have already had a concession that the standards that can be met by Brexit day are best international, rather than the Euratom standards the Government originally wished for.

Also, I understand that we have not yet had ratification of any of those nuclear co-operation agreements. Although I recognise and welcome the fact that we have agreement with the United States, agreement is not ratification. As the Minister himself said in a Written Answer to me:

“Ratification in the US requires the agreement to remain in Congress for 90 joint sitting days, whereby the US Senate and House of Representatives both sit, and the consent of two-thirds of the US Senate. Congress also has the option of adopting either a joint resolution of approval, with or without conditions, or standalone legislation that could approve the agreement. UK officials have held detailed discussions with the US and both sides are satisfied that this process can be completed ahead of the UK’s withdrawal from Euratom”.


I am glad to hear that optimism, but I still believe that that is a very difficult timetable to meet. I will be interested to hear from the Minister where we are on the other three nuclear co-operation agreements as well.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Broers]

3: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Agreements required before withdrawal
(1) In the event that any of the agreements listed in subsection (3) are not in place on 1 March 2019, a Minister of the Crown must, as part of the negotiations regarding the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community Treaty, request to suspend the United Kingdom’s withdrawal until either—(a) the agreements listed in subsection (3) are in place, or(b) other arrangements have been made to enable the United Kingdom to continue to benefit from existing nuclear safeguards arrangements until the agreements listed in subsection (3) are in place.(2) For the avoidance of doubt, a request for suspension under subsection (1) applies only to withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community Treaty and to no other part of the United Kingdom’s negotiations for withdrawal from the European Union.(3) The relevant agreements are—(a) an agreement between the United Kingdom and the International Atomic Energy Agency recognising the Office of Nuclear Regulation as the approved United Kingdom safeguarding authority in place of the European Atomic Energy Community;(b) a Voluntary Offer Agreement between the United Kingdom and the International Atomic Energy Agency resulting from the United Kingdom no longer being a member of the European Atomic Energy Community; and(c) relevant international agreements with those nations with which the United Kingdom has exercised rights in the last three years as a party to agreements made by the European Atomic Energy Community.”

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 3 seeks to ensure that the necessary agreements to secure the safeguards for our nuclear power are in place before 1 March 2019. It does not require us to withdraw but to suspend the UK’s withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community treaty until the agreements are in place.

The legal relationship between Euratom and the EU is not as clear to me as it is to the Minister. I have sought the opinion of learned friends who have told me there is no binding legal agreement that obliges us to withdraw from Euratom when we withdraw from the EU. However, the Government’s position is based upon what is stated in paragraph 18(1) in the Explanatory Notes relating to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act, which states:

“The power that is provided by clause 1(1) applies to withdrawal from the EU. This includes the European Atomic Energy Community (‘Euratom’), as the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 sets out that the term ‘EU’ includes (as the context permits or requires) Euratom (section 3(2))”.


The situation is not straightforward. I am reminded of the words of Sir Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons”—“I trust I make myself obscure”—which seems to be the situation.

As I have already stated, we are not asking for withdrawal but suspension of our withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community treaty until we have the relevant agreements described in subsections (3) (a), (b) and (c) of the proposed new clause in place to give the confidence that these agreements are complete and appropriate and will maintain the highest standards in safeguarding our nuclear power. This is essential if we are to maintain the nuclear baseload needed to underpin our intermittent renewables. As I said last night, if this fails we will almost certainly not be able to meet our reduction in emissions obligation.

Of all the world’s complex technologies, nuclear power is surely one where we must maintain collaboration with our partners, especially those in Europe, with whom we have been working so closely. To ensure that our energy strategy is secure, we must have the assurances contained in the amendment. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, in the draft transition agreement published yesterday the entry on Euratom is in green, which appears to demonstrate that there is some progress being made, apart from any legal complication which might emerge from the woodwork. The Government have committed themselves to a close association with the Euratom research and training programme. The Secretary of State has also committed to report back to Parliament every three months about overall progress on Euratom, with a first update expected before Easter. All so far so good, but this does not change the position that a default clause, such as this amendment suggests, might be sensible.

The only reason I have heard why this amendment will not or cannot be accepted is that, by our own folly, we have already given notice that we are leaving Euratom, come what may. My noble friend on the Front Bench described it as a done deal—which of course it is in terms of the Act we have already passed—but that is not the best of reasons for rejecting this amendment. After all, one Bill can amend a previous Act and if we find that the default position is needed in order to make sure that we do not fall between poles between one Bill and another, I should have thought that a fallback position such as that suggested by this rather sensible amendment would at least be worthy of serious consideration.

I recognise that the assurances given by the Government, and indeed by our Minister here, are helpful so far as they go—I have enumerated them just now—and that the disastrous decision to leave Euratom may ultimately be irreversible, but I will be listening to the Minister’s response to this debate with great care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is asking whether that NCA with the United States will be completed. I have given all the assurances I can that it will be and I cannot go any further than what I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hutton. With that in mind, what I was trying to make quite clear in what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, described as my peroration was the need for certainty for the industry, and this amendment would remove that certainty. The amendment would create a situation where we are compelled to secure agreements that we do not need and it runs counter to what the Government are doing: creating certainty. Even if this amendment were technically correct, its impact would be to introduce further uncertainty and potential disruption to an industry by casting doubt over establishing the domestic safeguards regime in the long term. I do not believe that can be the intention of the noble Lords who tabled it.

I believe we are on track to provide continuity and that this amendment is not only unnecessary but exacerbates the risks that it seeks to remove. I hope with the assurances I have given, and with the explanation of the weaknesses in the amendment, that the noble Lord will withdraw it.

[Lord Broers]

My Lords, I very much appreciate what the Minister said with respect to the progress the Government are making to seek these agreements—it is essential that we get agreements with our major partners. I do not feel that the amendment, as it is, will put us in great danger by going beyond our major partners, but perhaps such adjustments could be made in the other place.

I do feel, however, that I have heard too many assurances that have not been fulfilled. In a case of such great importance, this amendment would secure what may be relatively straightforward, as the Minister said. We are well on the way to gaining most of these agreements already so it should not be too burdensome, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fox]

My Lords, I support Amendment 9, to which my name is appended, and I commend the Government on Amendment 6 and support Amendment 7. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Warner: not even the Liberal Democrats are optimistic enough to imagine that everything is going to be in place in time. That is why we believe this is a helpful amendment to the Government and to the Minister. We heard in the debate on Amendment 3 that the stakes are high in achieving what needs to be achieved in time. I believe, en passant, that for the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, to use the cost as a reason for not having something like this in place is a little like trying to save the money that is down the side of the sofa when the whole house is potentially at stake. I suggest that cost is not a reason for not doing this.

The stakes are high. I will not rehearse them again but the Committee has heard scepticism, concern and worry from a vast array of people about whether the finish line can be crossed in time. The Minister—this is in no way reflects scepticism of the Minister himself—has stood up on a number of occasions and said everything is in order and we need not worry. Almost every statement he makes begins with, “I believe”. That is the problem; at this point, to some extent it is difficult to go beyond a belief system. Amendment 9 would put in place an independent voice, someone who was marking the Government’s homework but was not the Government. This is not a question of doing the work of the IAEA; it is a question of following and tracking the Government’s progress in getting to the finish line.

I echo the noble Lord, Lord Warner: this could be very useful for the Government in helping to give reassurance. It would be another voice to prove that the Minister was correct—if he was. When the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, says that this is not an aggressive amendment and not intended to be unhelpful, I know, because I participated in the discussion around this amendment, that it is genuinely not intended to wreck or harm the Bill in any way. It is intended to give support and some further credibility to the argument that things are moving in the right direction.

[Lord Broers]

My Lords, I will make some brief remarks in answer to the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. The research we are talking about here is not necessarily just in fusion—it includes fusion, but that is a great big project—but in areas that are ancillary to a certain extent but terribly important. Research is going on everywhere into radioactive waste disposal, but we happen to lead that. I do not think that this defeats the noble Viscount’s ambition—which is my ambition—that our own industry does a lot and gains a lot from that. It also gains a lot from being accepted by the community, so that when our advances come up, others will use what we did. The same is true of radiological protection, which is always a problem with workers around nuclear plants. So it is not just the new reactors, although the one gap in our knowledge is what is happening to the new generation fission reactors beyond the EPRs that people are working on. We really need international collaboration.

With respect to our own ambitions, I entirely support the noble Viscount in terms of SMRs. We are dying to get going—to be specific Rolls-Royce is dying to get going—on SMRs. In fact, Rolls-Royce tells us they are spending £1 million a month keeping that programme alive and waiting for the Government to make a decision on the competition which I hope will come.

Also, in fusion, there is Tokamak Energy. This is a very ambitious small company which feels it can contain fusion in a spherical tokamak, which is a fascinating thing. I should love to spend a lot of time talking about it. It is a very clever and effective way to up the efficiency of the use of the magnetic field to confine the plasma. So there is more to this research than just a few of the most obvious things. I think that is greatly in support of Amendment 7. I also support Amendment 6. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Hunt, who mentioned this. I think the independent review is designed to help the Government and not be a hindrance.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I want to begin by adding to something that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said. He said that I repeatedly say, “I believe, I believe”, and that the House has to take it on trust. I hope this goes beyond me and officials within the department. We have seen what is happening when it comes to nuclear safeguards—

Smart Meters Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to speak only briefly. First, I strongly support the Government’s commitment to offer smart meters to all households and small businesses. I believe that the potential for realising significant reductions in energy use through the use of smart meters will, as claimed by BEIS, be realised. Ultimately, the meters will allow users to monitor how they are using electricity and gas, thereby learning how to minimise their consumption.

Secondly, I urge the Government to press ahead as quickly as possible to ensure the supply of smart meters that are capable of monitoring individual appliances, together with lighting, heating and cooling systems. Batteries and energy sources should, of course, also be included. It should not be necessary to wait for appliances to be fitted with their own transducers to communicate with the smart meters, as they can be connected with existing smart plugs—which are all over the place—that are capable of monitoring the power used by an individual appliance and communicating this to a smart meter. This can be done by using a personal area wireless network such as Zigbee, which is a low-power, low-data-rate proximity wireless network designed especially for small-scale projects such as this. It has been around for a long time.

It will only be after all systems consuming or generating power are monitored that the full benefits of smart meters will be realised, as it will then be possible, for example, to see where power has been used and generated over a month or even a year, and optimise consumers’ own personal situations. I urge the Minister to ensure that meters capable of this extended monitoring are installed as soon as possible, but at the same time recommend that this should not delay the installation of SMETS 1 meters, as these will allow us to realise the gains in efficiency that the ability to monitor consumption on a half-hourly basis allows. In conclusion, I add my support to the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Teverson, in calling for the Government to just get on with it, please.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 22nd February 2018 Lords Chamber

I will just lob one further bit of context into the debate. We talk blandly about the importance of the industry to our energy, our security, our low-carbon challenge and all the changes that we are trying to respond to. But what is often lost sight of in this debate is that the nuclear industry is as significant to our economy as the aerospace industry. It makes the same tax and revenue contribution and creates as many jobs; it is essential to Britain’s future as a manufacturing nation. Let us not play fast and loose with it.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, on making clear from the industry’s point of view the importance of this continuity.

I will make a simple and perhaps naive and impractical point in a couple of minutes. I support Amendment 1 and the other amendments because, as I said at Second Reading and again last night when the situation with Euratom arose in Committee on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, my interests are centred on sustaining our research and development in support of nuclear power projects. The noble Lord, Lord Hutton, just pointed out the overall importance of sustaining our interest in the nuclear industry. This topic has been followed with some concern by the Science and Technology Select Committee for many years, including during the period when I chaired that committee. I have one reservation with Amendment 1, which I will get to in a minute.

We have sustained world-competitive expertise in many areas of nuclear technology, such as waste disposal, but have relied on collaboration, especially through our membership of Euratom, in keeping up with the development of new types of reactors and of course with nuclear fusion. Research and development of this type is carried out by large teams of research engineers and scientists coming from a broad range of disciplines, and advances emerge through frequent and continuous interactions that occur when researchers get together at symposia and workshops. An idea can come from anywhere in the world. These are team projects, where advances are made through the exchange of information and close collaboration.

I recall when I first took responsibility for a large group of research engineers and scientists developing the advanced electronics for IBM’s new computers in the United States in the early 1980s. A senior engineer with decades of experience pioneering the development of computers took me aside and gave me a lecture about morale. He emphasised the importance of maintaining high morale in managing large teams of researchers working on difficult projects. The fusion project is an extremely difficult project. I was discussing this with a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer just now, who said that the results with fusion were very disappointing. Of course, it is an extraordinarily difficult project. You are trying to maintain extremely high temperatures, higher than on the sun, and trying to contain plasma in a container and then have it survive severe bombardment from neutrons. Why are we doing this project? Because it offers the ultimate solution to our energy problems. We pursue much larger scientific projects—CERN spent orders of magnitude more than we are spending on the ITER project. We have played a key role in that project and we can continue to contribute to it, but we must feel part of the team.

My point is that morale is maintained by feeling part of a team. It is very much like the Olympics. I went back home last night at midnight, and the one good thing about staying up that late was that the slalom was still on the television. We have a very fine slalom skier who trained on a plastic slope—that is a bit of technology for you. He skied brilliantly and got into the top 10, but he had one disadvantage. He did not have the other three members of the team that the Austrians, the French and the Swiss had, who radioed back the moment they got to the bottom to say, “Watch turns five, seven and nine because of the rut there”. He had to do it all on his own.

We do not want to be on our own in our nuclear endeavours: we want to be part of the team but a full member of it, not an associate member. So my unrealistic suggestion is that we go for full membership of the team and not associate membership.

[Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan]

I am very pleased to follow the last two speakers, because I have had associations with both of them. In the case of my noble friend Lord Hutton, I was his predecessor as chair of the Nuclear Industry Association.

In supporting Amendments 2, 12 and 17, particularly Amendment 2, I draw attention to the fact that the Bill is about reassuring the industry and the British people that we will have safeguarding regimes of a quality and a standard that will enable there to be continuing public support for civil nuclear in the United Kingdom. This is not a matter of holding the Government’s feet to the fire—although, as an Opposition Member, I largely approve of such an approach—but to make it clear that it is essential that we get reports back. The fact is that, so far—as has been evidenced by the appearance of the word “Euratom” in the withdrawal papers—that has been a pretty low priority for the Government. Frankly, we cannot trust them without something in the Bill to require there to be a report, albeit an interim one, by Christmas. That is where both the Liberal amendment and the amendment from my colleagues come in. That is not unreasonable, because the record is pretty feeble so far. At worst, we have heard platitudinous nonsense from the Government on many of these issues. We want there to be a requirement that means that their attention is focused on a particular time and date so that, before Christmas of this year, we will have an interim report on the progress that has been made. The areas covered are quite clear.

It is also fair to say that we need a transition period. The noble Lord, Lord Broers, has been riding the horse that he usually rides in respect of research and development, on which he has become an acknowledged expert. I just make the point that there is a lot more to the nuclear industry than research and development and the generation of power. We have considerable expertise in safety matters as consultants in United Kingdom companies and internationally. Our record on the decommissioning of power stations is probably second to none because we have been at it longer than anyone else and because we started building them long before most other people. However, if we are not able to keep abreast of improvements and developments, we will not be able to continue that kind of work.

As I said, the nuclear cycle involves more than just research and the generation of power, and at the moment we enjoy a pretty good position. As my noble friend Lord Hutton said, it is a not insignificant contributor to the engineering and manufacturing side of the British economy, so it is economically important. Politically, it is also important that in this House there is a consensus that then breeds confidence in the country as a whole.

These amendments will have their deficiencies. At this stage in legislation it is the stuff of ministerial responses to say that the amendments are not quite good enough, but when the case is strong enough—I think we all believe that it is—it is the responsibility of government to accept the spirit of the amendments and to go away and consult the Front Benches and interested parties to secure wording which we consider to be appropriate for the scale of the challenge that has to be met to sustain the confidence of the nuclear industry, the confidence of this House and, ultimately, the confidence of the country as a whole in the civil nuclear project in which we are currently engaged.

I will be very disappointed if the Minister tries to duck and dive on this issue. If he does, I suspect that he will get bruised when we come to consider it at the next stage. I think that there is a strong feeling about this on pretty well all sides of the House. Even the noble Viscount was somewhat half-hearted in his backing of the Government and made the point that transitional arrangements are necessary. However, for transitional arrangements to be effective, we must have reports at every stage of the process. Frankly, nine months on is not an unreasonable point at which to ask for such a report. It is not enough for Ministers simply to say, “Yes, we will come back and address the House”. We need something more concrete than that. We also need assurances that, before any further action is taken, we are given clear indications of matters relating to finance and future developments so that we can avoid the charge that we have given the Government a blank cheque in relation to a piece of our national economy which is essential to the future energy needs of our country.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Thursday 22nd February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

With the greatest respect, I did not interfere in the writing of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I will crack on a bit further to answer the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, as I too think this bit is very interesting. We are talking about these additional countries because we are obviously going to have to set up NCAS with them, too, for trade to continue. I assure noble Lords that discussions on the four priority NCAs started a while back and are progressing well. They are on track to be completed before the UK leaves the EU. I can also assure noble Lords that this Government, as part of their planning process, have factored in the time necessary to seek parliamentary ratification of the agreements both in the UK and in third countries. This will enable the NCAs to come into force from the moment that Euratom arrangements no longer apply to the UK.

I turn now to the UK’s discussions with the IAEA. Noble Lords will be aware that the UK began formal discussions with it some months ago to conclude new safeguards agreements that would replace those between the UK, IAEA and Euratom when the Euratom arrangements are no longer applicable. These discussions, which began some months ago, as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe mentioned, have been constructive and fruitful, and substantial progress has been made. I can be a little more specific: formal negotiations started last September and there were several rounds of preliminary meetings before that. There have been two rounds of negotiations so far, which have made substantial progress. I hope that that is helpful.

The amendment asks that the IAEA should recognise the ONR as the approved safeguards authority in the UK, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I will make it clear that the IAEA’s focus in respect of the UK’s safeguards lies with the voluntary offer agreement and additional protocols rather than with the domestic legislation underpinning the domestic regime or the UK Government’s arrangements for fulfilling their commitments. However, as I have set out, the Government have already held productive and fruitful discussions with the IAEA on the UK’s future safeguards agreements and understand what the IAEA requires of us in setting up the system. It is not necessary to consult on the detail of legislation or on the ONR’s readiness to implement the new regime with the IAEA.

As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy set out in his Statement to the House in September last year, the Government are seeking new agreements with the IAEA that follow exactly the same principles as the existing ones. This will ensure that the IAEA retains its right to inspect all civil nuclear facilities and to receive all current safeguards reporting, ensuring that international verification of our safeguards activity continues to be robust.

In addition to this, the Secretary of State set out on 11 January the Government’s intention to update the House on our overall progress with Euratom, including on the EU negotiations and other important matters such as international agreements. I trust that these reports, the first of which we expect to provide in a few weeks’ time—indeed, just before the Easter Recess—will reassure noble Lords that significant and substantial progress is being made. Indeed, noble Lords will be able to see it for themselves and will no doubt bring it back to the House to discuss, should they wish.

Amendment 15, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, inserts two new subsections and seeks to require that, by 29 March 2019, the Secretary of State must present to Parliament a substantially detailed report, along with draft regulations implementing any agreements reached with Euratom relating to safeguards, and have such regulations approved by both Houses. Amendment 14 seeks to prevent the substantive provisions of the Bill coming into force until regulations under Amendment 15 to implement safeguards agreements with Euratom have been approved. While I have sympathy with the noble Lord’s aim of ensuring robust parliamentary scrutiny, the process set out in Amendment 15 would not be appropriate. As we have already discussed in our deliberations on this Bill, I am confident that there are appropriate processes in place to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny of the substantive powers in the Bill. Noble Lords can be assured that the regulations establishing a UK safeguards regime under the powers in the Bill will be subject to the draft affirmative procedure.

I turn now to the report proposed in this amendment. We have been open about our strategy for withdrawal and our future relationship with Euratom. In the Written Ministerial Statement on 11 January, we outlined a twofold approach under which we are seeking a close association with Euratom through our negotiations with the European Union. I refer noble Lords to the Written Ministerial Statement. It goes into some detail about our specific objectives in relation to a close association with research and training, continuity of open trade arrangements and close and effective co-operation on nuclear safety. This is a very broad ambition of ours, and it goes much further than the nuclear safeguards that we are specifically talking about today. Simultaneously with these discussions about our broader relationship with Euratom, on which we will report to your Lordships’ House every three months, we are putting in place measures to ensure that we can operate as an independent and responsible nuclear state from day one.

As noble Lords will be aware, we are planning negotiations on a possible implementation period. The Government have confirmed that they intend to include Euratom matters. This implementation period will start after the date that we leave the European Union. This must be taken into account. We are being open with our plans for a domestic regime, and we have been clear on our intentions for the new domestic regime. As made clear in the Written Ministerial Statement, the Government intend to be able to put in place a robust regime equivalent in coverage and effectiveness to that currently provided by Euratom. To put this more clearly, and for the avoidance of doubt, we would be meeting IAEA standards on day one and working our way to Euratom standards as soon as possible thereafter. A key but inevitable difference will be that reporting and assurance activities would be carried out by the ONR rather than Euratom.

The approach of using a domestic body rather than a supranational one to operate a domestic safeguards regime is common among other non-Euratom countries, such as the US and Canada, whose safeguards regimes consist of a state regulator, with the IAEA providing independent international verification. This approach necessitates some differences in the approach of the regime but we do not consider it to necessitate a reduction in standards. To be absolutely clear about independence, it is the international oversight provided by the IAEA and the inspections carried out by its inspectors that underpin the independence of nuclear safeguards around the world. As I have already mentioned, we have committed to providing Parliament with quarterly reports on progress from across the Euratom programme. These reports will include a section on ONR capacity and readiness as well as on research, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

Before I close, I want to return to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, about the meeting that he attended with officials. I want to flesh out the Government’s consultation strategy on this because I fear he thinks it is narrower than is truly the case. The Government continue to have discussions with the nuclear industry on the future of the nuclear safeguards regime. In addition to official-level engagement, Richard Harrington, the Minister for Energy and Industry, held a representative industry stakeholder forum in September. There have been further forums since then and the next one will take place on 5 March. The Government have provided the industry with pre-consultation drafts of regulations that we propose to make, and in late February we held a technical workshop on the draft regulations with key nuclear operators.

I hope my explanations have provided sufficient reassurances to noble Lords, and that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to catch the Minister before she sits down, if that is possible. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, and I have mentioned research and development. Resources to sustain that research and development come through Euratom. Have the Government said anything about how these resources are going to be sustained in future?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Broers, for that comment. I did have a little more flesh on that particular bone so I shall share it now. On the question of research, the Government’s objectives are set out in our recent future partnership paper, Collaboration on Science and Innovation. We are seeking a close association with the Euratom research and training programme, including the Joint European Torus and International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, projects. The Government have already guaranteed our share of the funding for the Oxfordshire-based JET fusion reactor until the end of 2020, demonstrating our commitment to continued collaboration.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I realised when I saw my position in the batting order here that most of what I was going to say would have already been said, although I am somewhat astounded by what is coming out just now—what the noble Lords, Lord Whitty, Lord O’Neill and Lord Carlile, said—that we may not have had to get into this mess. I had thought that our membership of Euratom was, legally, tightly linked to our membership of the EU and that it was inevitable that we would have to leave Euratom. If that is not the case then somebody has made a very major blunder. I hope the Minister will be able to sort out for us whether we needed to leave Euratom, because I cannot imagine anybody supporting that.

I decided to speak today because I am convinced that nuclear power is going to be essential if we are to meet our carbon targets, and to sustain our nuclear power in the long term we are going to need a nuclear R&D programme. To explain my interest, I have spent a lot of time supporting nuclear R&D in this House as a past member and chairman of the Science and Technology Select Committee. I am therefore well aware of the importance of our membership of Euratom and of the need, after Brexit, to find the means to sustain what that membership provides. Related to that, I also retain the hope that the challenges of harnessing fusion power will in the end be met, and our membership of the international projects driving fusion forward also depend on our membership of Euratom. Both the future of nuclear R&D and fusion research are closely related to our membership of Euratom.

I realise that the Bill addresses only the issue of nuclear safeguards. I found this early in my reading, in a simple paragraph entitled, “What the Bill doesn’t cover”:

“The Nuclear Safeguards Bill only makes provisions for Euratom’s role on nuclear safeguards. Euratom however has a number of functions including regulating the civil nuclear industry, disposal of nuclear waste, ownership of nuclear fuel, and research and development”.


I would rate those things as outranking our safeguards by about 10 to one, but the Bill dodges them. It is being thrown into that overall confusion of what we are doing to negotiate our position in the EU.

Getting back to the Bill, I support the Government’s two-track approach to providing safeguards for our nuclear plants, but I naturally hope that we can follow the first track and find a way to remain a member of Euratom, rather than having to rely on the alternative of providing the capabilities ourselves. The Bill provides the means of establishing our own capabilities in the area of safeguards. This is going to be expensive—even this, as has been realised—and I believe that new inspectors are already being hired and trained. However, it is not going to be possible to train the inspectors to the level that they can maintain the current high standards in the long term without maintaining a competitive and up-to-date research and development programme. Nuclear technologies, along with all other high technologies, are going to continue to change rapidly. Advanced reactor designs are already being worked on, as are small modular reactors, and the knowledge of how to maintain safeguards for these new systems will require an up-to-date understanding of their operation. This can be obtained only through direct involvement with the engineers who actually design and build these systems. Either we have these engineers working on our projects, or we are members of the international community—presumably Euratom and perhaps the IAEA—and have access to the latest data from other countries.

As I have mentioned, there is also the vital issue of nuclear fusion. As we all know, we are leaders in this technology through our work on the Joint European Torus at Culham. For more than three decades we have maintained world leadership in this research. In addition, we have been major partners in ITER, the large international project in the south of France, where a fusion reactor capable of generating electricity is being built. At Culham we have also pursued research into new, smaller fusion reactors. These are known as spherical tokamaks, where the reactor chamber is not a torus, or doughnut, but spherical. This geometry has been shown to be three times more efficient and there are hopes that this may make smaller reactors than ITER feasible. There is also a commercial company in the UK developing this type of reactor. If we are forced to leave Euratom, we will lose the funds necessary to continue all this vital fusion energy research, which would be a major tragedy, perhaps not in the “dagger in the heart” category but almost there. We lead the world in precious few scientific or technological fields but this is one of them. It would be a complete tragedy if we jeopardised this project in any way.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to reassure us that the Government will give the same priority to maintaining a competitive nuclear R&D programme as to establishing our own ability to provide the safeguards necessary to maintain our existing and already planned nuclear plants. This will be essential if we are to be able to assess our own power plants in the long term and to remain competitive in fusion research, which has the potential to solve many of the world’s energy problems.

Energy: Home Battery Storage

Lord Broers Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, so far, we have seen the cost of lithium-ion batteries drop by some 50% over the last five years, since 2012. That implies that resources of lithium are more or less okay and that market forces are driving costs down. I do not have the figures on long-term estimates of quantities of lithium, but that will be taken into account by the market in due course.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, with respect to the previous question, would it not be a good idea for the Government to follow that issue rather carefully, so that the consumer can have a realistic price? Solar cells and storage batteries are expensive, and people selling them do not always give straightforward information. It would be a good idea, would it not, for the Government to look at this in some detail, so that consumers can be given reliable advice on the cost of such storage?

Manufacturing: Digital Technology

Lord Broers Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

Again, I can only agree with the noble Lord. I have not even got as far as skimming the report. I intend to take the advice of the noble Baroness and read it over the weekend. Any big changes that come to us can obviously be big threats to other fields. That is why my right honourable friend originally commissioned this report, welcomed it and thanked Professor Juergen Maier for producing it. We want to make the right response—not just of the Government, but of United Kingdom industry and the whole of the United Kingdom—in due course.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minster realises that, on the positive side, this will grow exports. If we do not have our products adequately defined in digital terms we will not compete internationally. It is essential that we drive this forward.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can only say how much I agree with the noble Lord. We have to look at what digitalisation offers to us while also bearing in mind what the noble Lord, Lord West, said about threats. That is why we want to make the right response. I note what has been said.