European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Fox Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I too, have the pleasure of serving on the Science and Technology Select Committee under the watchful eye of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, so I am sure he will mark my card next week at the next meeting. The theme so far has been one of questions to the Minister, and I am afraid I am going to add to them. The overriding concern of the House seems to be that we need to get some idea of where this is going. This is a very important part of our industry and a very important part of both science and industry.

I will restrict myself very briefly to just two areas: research and safeguarding nuclear materials. The Minister knows that Euratom provides the UK with access to considerable R&D funding, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, pointed out, and I believe that at least 25 UK organisations are involved in that research. It would be useful if the Minister could tell this House what arrangements are planned to ensure international collaboration can continue in the event that we are no longer in Euratom. Some have said that each of those relationships will have to be separately negotiated. What is the Minister’s view? Do we have to unilaterally renegotiate each relationship, whether business or research? Very importantly, what is the position of JET, the Joint European Torus at Culham, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Teverson? I have friends working there, and there is a great deal of anxiety there about what is going to happen to that project and where it sits. Can the Minister give any comfort to our scientists there both for their future and how they are viewing that project going forward?

On safeguarding nuclear materials, I bow to the superior knowledge of a number of other Peers who have spoken here, not least the noble Lords, Lord O’Neill and Lord Hutton. Of course there are concerns around laboratories and other organisations that have to dispose of materials. I was speaking yesterday to someone who runs an academic laboratory who had occasion over the summer to dispose of some thorium. Of course, who did he call, how did he go and what were the protocols? It was all through Euratom. How does all this get replaced? Can the Minister explain what work is now under way and what scoping has been carried out as regards what will replace all the processes that currently exist for that? Can he confirm that there is some sort of timeline that says it will be ready to operate, fit to go, as soon as we exit the European Union, which plays to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton? If we are not ready at that point, then we effectively drop off a cliff in terms of the governance that we require.

The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, mentioned that it is a busy period for the Government, to say the least. We see that DExEU is already galvanising other departments around issues such as immigration, air traffic control, customs systems and all sorts of processes are going on. If the Government were able in some way to delay this particular complication, their objective of a frictionless exit might be easier to attain. So I have two final questions. Can the Minister tell us what the experts are saying and can he publish what the expert view has been on this? Can he tell us how many civil servants are currently being deployed on the process of managing and planning this exit?