Nuclear Safeguards Bill (Second sitting)

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 31st October 2017 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I welcome our witness for the first session this afternoon, which can last for half an hour. Angela Hepworth is the corporate policy and regulation director at EDF. Perhaps, for the record, you would be kind enough to introduce yourself. If you want to say anything about the Bill by way of introductory remarks, please do so.

Angela Hepworth: I am Angela Hepworth. I am the corporate policy and regulation director for EDF Energy. I look after our interaction with Government and with regulators in the UK, and I am also managing the company’s work on Brexit, and in particular Euratom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)]

Q 46 Good afternoon, Angela. I would like to ask you a general question, if I may. Do you agree that a nuclear safeguards Bill is an essential step for the UK in preparing for its exit from Euratom?

Angela Hepworth: I do agree. Maybe I can say something about our industrial perspective and what it means to us in the UK.

As I am sure you know, we own and operate the eight existing nuclear power stations in the UK, which provide 20% of the UK’s electricity-generating capacity. We also have plans to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C and then follow-on nuclear power stations. As part of that, it is vital for the existing nuclear fleet and for our new build projects that we are able to import fuel, components, services and information for the nuclear power stations. That is absolutely essential. We have a supply chain that depends on having access to those things from Europe and further afield.

In order to do that, it is essential that there is a functioning safeguards regime in place that is approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the moment, as you know, that is provided by Euratom. When Euratom is no longer providing that, it is essential that we have a domestic regime that will support our ability to import those things. We see it as essential to have a safeguarding regime and therefore essential to have the Bill, to give the necessary powers to put that regime in place.

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

Q Obviously EDF works beyond our borders. If your business ends up having to work across multiple safeguarding regimes, what likely complications will that cause for you? Do you do that already?

Angela Hepworth: In terms of our UK operations, we will be operating within a UK safeguarding regime. We understand that the Government’s intention is to keep the arrangements from an industry perspective quite similar to the existing arrangements that apply with Euratom. The Bill provides powers to put that regime in place. We have not seen the detail of how those arrangements will operate, but we are very keen to. We are happy, in principle, working under a domestic safeguards regime in the UK, as we have been happy working under a Euratom safeguards regime.

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[The Chair]

Q Before I ask Mr Coyne, I will just pick up on that particular point. We are restricted by parliamentary procedure to discussing what is in the Bill. Associate membership of Euratom is not, and therefore we are not permitted to discuss it even should we wish to do so. We must discuss only what is in the Bill and not what, presumably, we would have liked to be in it.

Kevin Coyne: What a pity. I am Kevin Coyne, national officer for Unite. Unite represents skilled workers in the nuclear industry, from decommissioning and generation to huge swathes of the electricity industry. Our position on the Bill, and I understand that you will be asking supplementary questions about whether we support it, is that we have concerns, principally about the impact on workers in the industry, as you would expect from us. We also have concerns about the timescale, and whether that will be in place and have ramifications for jobs in the future. We have concerns about JET in particular, the jobs based at JET, and the freedom of movement of those jobs throughout Europe and the attention to detail in the Bill about that. Those are our three main concerns.

[Richard Harrington]

Welcome this afternoon. I accept your point, Kevin, and the Chair has quite rightly ruled about our discussing what is in the Bill, but my door is always open to both you and Sue to discuss other matters on another occasion.

Kevin Coyne: That is very kind of you.

[Richard Harrington]

Q I know you know that, but I wanted to confirm it, although it is not relevant to this afternoon’s session.

I would like to ask you a leading question—something which of course we do. I understand your views on Euratom and what Sue said about associate membership. She is quite right that there is no actual definition of associate membership. However, given that the Government decided to serve the article 50 notice on Euratom and we are leaving subject to negotiations, which is a statement of fact, would you accept that we are doing the right thing in having nuclear safeguards built? I accept that you do not think that the Bill covers everything, but would you still support it?

Kevin Coyne: The important point is that there is a safeguarding mechanism in place by 2019. You have seen my paper, in which we indicate as a union that we wished that Euratom had been left in place for a series of reasons, including the continuity of various bits at a high level. We do not believe that we can hope to progress to that level by 2019, so we believe that the safeguarding mechanisms outlined in the Bill are important to safeguard the industry as it goes into a phase which we do not yet know about.

Sue Ferns: Just to add to that, having read the Second Reading debate, there was a lot of talk about this being a contingency measure. I would agree; it is an essential contingency measure. It is not our first preference, but it needs to be there as a contingency.

[The Chair]

I call shadow Minister, Dr Alan Whitehead.

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[Trudy Harrison]

Q Just changing tone slightly, I notice, Kevin, that you have a reference to concern around radioactive isotopes. I do not share that concern. I do not understand why you think this is relevant to Euratom, because they are not fissile material. I have not heard of anyone using plutonium or uranium in medical practice. I wonder, if they have not been risk-assessed by the IAEA, why you would feel there is a concern about their falling under the realms of Euratom.

Kevin Coyne: I think that is an area which is of serious consequence. I think it is generally not well known—the fact that Euratom covers the transportation of materials—or that isotopes that are used in the NHS, for instance, come from Holland and other countries. We do not have the reactors in this country to produce them. I understand what you say about the registration. We highlighted that as a concern because there is a two-day, three-day shelf-life; this comes from us as a union that operates within the NHS at quite an extensive level. In terms of the delivery and transportation of that, there are sometimes delays. So our point is that the change of regimes and the difference in what might occur may cause that to be delayed even further and therefore impact upon the NHS itself. We make no stronger point than that we ought to look at the impact upon isotopes in hospitals.

[Richard Harrington]

Q On that point, if I may clarify, given that that has been brought to my attention—I have agreed to see the Royal College and other people who are interested. Is your point that the movement of the isotopes is perhaps to do with what happens with Brexit—that is, the movement of any foreign goods—or is it a Euratom point? We think on the former you have a point, but on the latter you are mistaken.

Kevin Coyne: A Euratom point—and you think I am mistaken about that?

[Richard Harrington]

Well, because I can quite understand the point that they have got to be overnight, or very quickly, and all that kind of thing—would that be affected by a change of law when we Brexit. My advice, though, is very clear; I have asked a lot of people, as you might imagine. It is very much Trudy’s point, which is that, whatever one thinks about Euratom and so on, the medical isotopes are not covered within the fissile definition of Euratom. Do you feel that we are wrong on that, or was your point, “Yes, we’ve got to get them quickly and without paperwork and all that kind of delay”—which may or may not happen afterwards?

Kevin Coyne: Our information, as I said, was simply that upon the basis of the delays in transportation, due to the change in regime, we thought we ought to have in place a cast-iron security, as we do now, to make sure that those delays do not unnecessarily happen.

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[The Chair]

It is most kind of you. The Minister may want to clarify the difference between inspectors and safeguarders.

[Richard Harrington]

I do not feel able fully to clarify the point at this juncture, Mr Gray. Usually the mistake is made—not that Professor Matthews would—between safety and safeguarders, but we are looking at the safeguards regime here, which includes physical inspection, mentioned today by quite a few of the people giving evidence, and, though I do not quite know how to use the expression, remote inspection by cameras and other sets of kit, which at the moment belong to Euratom but I am sure will be part of the new safeguards regime.

Professor Matthews: There are three components in nuclear safeguards. One is nuclear materials accountancy— that is, keeping track of nuclear materials. Then there are two skills that go along with that. One is assaying, determining the amount of nuclear materials—

[Richard Harrington]

That is laboratory testing the quality and the content.

Professor Matthews: And observing and recording movements of nuclear materials, without both of which you cannot do the accountancy.

[Richard Harrington]

I would accept that.

Professor Matthews: That is quite different from proving a safety case for the operation of a nuclear installation.

[Richard Harrington]

I would accept that.

[The Chair]

Exceeding my role as Chairman, it might be something you would ask your officials to look into for later consideration during the Bill?

[Richard Harrington]

They already are.

[The Chair]

They already are. That has answered the point; good.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q May I ask for clarification? You say they already are: will there be some kind of appraisal of the staff skills, knowledge and qualifications required to carry out the function of Euratom in the UK, to determine what skills are required?

[Richard Harrington]

Is it acceptable for me to answer?

[The Chair]

Why not? It is slightly unusual, but why not?

[Richard Harrington]

Why not? I am quite happy to. That function, currently done by Euratom, will be done by the new safeguards regime. It will be responsible for examination and testing and making sure there are suitably qualified inspectors, in the same way that Euratom does now.

[Dr Whitehead]

Q I think you were in the session when we heard evidence from our previous witnesses this afternoon concerning what is in the Energy Act 2013 and in other Acts concerning the responsibilities and powers of and prohibitions on nuclear inspectors in general. You have made the very precise point that the role of an inspector relating to nuclear safeguarding is certainly not the same as the role of an inspector relating to nuclear safety: they will have different skills and responsibilities. Is it your understanding, however, that what is in the legislation at the moment concerning the overall powers and responsibilities of inspectors is sufficient for the purpose of bringing under the regulation of ONR a number of inspectors who previously would not have been covered by that area of responsibility but would have been reporting to Euratom and covered by whatever Euratom decided was necessary as far as that inspection and safeguarding is concerned?

Professor Matthews: Clearly, the operation of the Office for Nuclear Regulation requires a range of different roles. I would see no problem with adding an additional role to the range of roles that are already in the organisation. It is just the physical people are different people who do these different things. Indeed, nuclear inspectors themselves have different backgrounds and specialisations, and diverse education as well. I suppose it is extending the range of what the Office for Nuclear Regulation does.

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[Paul Blomfield]

Q I guess in lots of other areas, having got close and being not quite but almost fully functioning might be satisfactory. In this specific area, what are the consequences of not having a fully functioning safeguarding regime in place?

Professor Matthews: Springfields, which produces nuclear fuel, will stop working. The Urenco plant at Capenhurst, which is part of three plants in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, will stop working because it will not be able to move uranium around. We in the UK no longer do conversion, which is changing uranium into uranium hexafluoride, which then goes to the enrichment plant and is converted back to oxide or metal for application. That requires movement, and all of that would stop.

It would be difficult for Sellafield and other decommissioning sites, such as the old research sites at Dounreay, Harwell or Winfrith; some of the work there would grind to a halt as well. Eventually, when the fuel charges were removed from reactors operating in EDF Energy’s plant, those would all stop, which would take something like 9 GW of power out of our network at a time when we are perilously close to blackouts. It would be a very serious measure indeed if there was a hiatus.

[Richard Harrington]

Thank you for that, Professor Matthews. You are of course using my argument for why we need the Bill; thank you for supporting it. Dr Mina Golshan, whose organisation is responsible for recruiting the 15 people we are talking about, said that recruitment had already started. Once the Bill proceeded beyond Second Reading—I thank everyone, including Opposition Members, for voting for that—it meant that the financial resources needed for the IT and recruitment are provided. We are very well aware of that.

I thank you for your de facto support for the Bill. I have of course noted the points you have made, and I will be very happy to chat about them on another occasion. The purpose of the Bill is precisely to get over some of the obstacles that you are talking about and prevent what you have explained would happen—as we accept would happen—if we did not have a safeguards regime in place.

[Dr Whitehead]

Q May I come back briefly on the question of finance? I think we all know that, as a contingency, we need the safeguarding regime that is set out in the Bill. What I think we do not know is what will happen with the various finances involved in the whole process. I characterise that in two ways. First, what will happen to what we previously paid to Euratom, and presumably would have to pay and then recover —as is mentioned in the Bill—via ONR, for the cost of the inspectors, who would previously have been part of our contribution to Euratom but will now be a UK contribution?

Secondly, I understand that the Torus fusion project at Culham will be a subject of safeguarding inspection. Will that be financed, subsequent to our leaving Euratom, in a way that is commensurate with its present level of assistance, which largely comes, as you are aware, from EU funding? Do you have any comment on that?

Professor Matthews: There is a difficulty here and I do not know if it is recognised in the Bill; it perhaps needs scrutinising. The only mention in the Bill and in these discussions is of our fissile materials. We are talking about uranium, plutonium and other axinite isotopes, and precursors such as thorium, which can be converted into fissile materials. In the case of Culham and the fusion programme, they use tritium. Tritium is a material that comes under safeguards, which is not a fissile material. It is a material that is a component in hydrogen bombs, and it is controlled. I remember getting into trouble as a young scientist. I was asked to assess the use of lithium-6 as an absorber for a fast reactor project. I phoned up a French supplier of lithium-6, and next thing I had security down on me, because tritium is produced from lithium-6 and is a controlled material. I do not know whether any consideration is being made of the control of tritium with respect to Culham and nuclear safeguards.

[The Chair]

Yes. Perhaps fissile materials are slightly beyond the scope of the Bill.

[Richard Harrington]

That is beyond the scope of the Bill, but perhaps we could discuss it, although not necessarily now, in the evidence session. I am happy to discuss it, but I suspect that your interpretation is correct, Mr Gray, and it is beyond the narrower scope of the Bill. I am happy to discuss it with the Shadow Minister.

[Dr Whitehead]

One might argue that the scope of the Bill is too narrow for the safeguarding that we need to undertake.