European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hutton of Furness Excerpts

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

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, I was lucky enough to serve on the Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and I now chair the Science and Technology Committee. We are revisiting this issue at present, looking at developments since the 2011 report. One of the recommendations, which was not fully implemented by the Government, but on which, nevertheless, there was a bit of progress, was that a strategy board be set up to advise government in the long term—and nothing could be more long term than a nuclear energy strategy. An organisation was set up called the Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board. NIRAB was set up on a limited term of three years and produced its final report in February—last week, in fact—which is a survey of civil nuclear research in this country. I echo the question of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs: what will follow NIRAB? While in principle it is often a good idea for advisory boards and strategy boards to have a built-in termination—otherwise, they go on for ever—in practice we do need continuity of thought. That has clearly been lacking. Indeed, there has been no thought; that has been part of the problem. Successive Governments kicked this into touch. Nuclear research was an issue that, until recently, simply was not addressed adequately.

In its February report, NIRAB pointed out something totally obvious that nevertheless needs saying: that international collaboration is the main route for developing nuclear technologies. Of course, there are a number of ways of undertaking international collaboration, but we are quite a small player, however much we manage to build up our dismally low nuclear capability compared, say, with the 1960s, when we were indeed a large world player. We have been overtaken by a number of countries. If the industrial strategy, which has nuclear as one of its 10 pillars, is to be implemented, we have clearly got an awful lot of catching up to do.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, slightly failed to note that, although we joined Euratom before the European Union evolved from the EEC, the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008—which I must admit had escaped my notice—joined Euratom and the European Union at the hip in some way. A lawyer can explain to me the implications of that but paragraph 18 of the Explanatory Notes explains that we have to withdraw from the European Atomic Agency Community, Euratom, because it is now part of the EU in legal terms. Be that as it may, it is absolutely clear that we have to have a relationship with Euratom and with other organisations around the world which are collaborating.

One such collaboration, again thinking long term, is the Generation IV International Forum. This is looking very long term, leapfrogging through to new technologies which have still to be developed—we are thinking about the year 2030 and beyond. At the moment, the NIRAB report describes us as only participating as an inactive member—that was the case in 2011—through the subscription to Euratom. When the Government responded to the Select Committee report, they said, “We don’t have to worry about joining the Generation IV Forum if we want to remain connected to the emerging technologies, because we are members of Euratom”. Clearly, that answer does not work anymore if Brexit is going to happen and we are going to leave Euratom. We clearly need quite quick answers.

I agree entirely that this is not controversial. The Government are the first to say that we simply have to develop a nuclear strategy and a nuclear capability, and we have to collaborate. If, for legal reasons—and I do believe they are only legal reasons—we have to withdraw from formal membership, surely when the Minister responds he can tell us, without prejudicing any negotiating position in this case, exactly what ideal situation we would like to achieve.

[Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall say a few brief words in support of the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has moved this evening. Before I say anything further, I should bring the attention of your Lordships’ House to the interests I have declared in the register. I am the chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association here in the United Kingdom.

I do not think there is any doubt at all that membership of the Euratom treaty has brought very significant benefits to the UK nuclear industry and, in doing so, has served some vital strategic interests of our country. Unlike membership of the European Union itself, which remains a polarising and deeply divisive issue in our country, I have not heard anyone mount any argument at all—ever, at any point in this process—in favour of leaving the Euratom treaty. I get the very strong sense that the position of Her Majesty’s Government has come very late in this process. Having looked at how these two treaties have become intertwined in recent decades, the Attorney-General, giving advice to the Cabinet, has clearly favoured separation entirely, so that as we leave the European Union we face this rather grim and desperate situation where we might find ourselves without any internationally recognised nuclear safeguards operating in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am most obliged to the noble Lord for his second sight, because I was about to address that very point.

In the context of the referendum, people voted to leave the European Union institutions. They voted to leave the European Parliament. They voted to leave the European Commission. They voted to leave the Council of Ministers, and they voted to leave the European Court of Justice. They spoke in terms of reshoring their sovereignty and the supremacy of UK law. You cannot leave those institutions if you remain within Euratom.

It is the Government’s view that, once we have left the European Union, we will seek to engage with the members of Euratom, just as do many other nuclear-enabled countries around the world, by way of nuclear co-operation agreements. However, once we have left the EU, substantive negotiated changes to the Euratom treaty would be needed if we were to continue participating in Euratom, whether on a permanent or temporary basis. Not only is it difficult to see how that can be done given the commonality of the institutions, but it is extremely doubtful that the remaining 27 member states would be willing to take on such negotiations, particularly for a temporary change. Therefore, when we formally notify of our intention to leave the EU, we will also commence the process for leaving Euratom.

Let me be clear: the United Kingdom supports Euratom and wants to maintain continuity of co-operation and standards. As many of your Lordships have quite rightly stated, the nuclear industry is of key strategic importance to the United Kingdom. Therefore, we want to maintain our mutually successful civil nuclear co-operation with Euratom and, indeed, with all of our other international partners, which we do by means of nuclear co-operation treaties.

We maintain that the UK remains a world leader in nuclear research and development, and there is certainly no intention to reduce our ambition in that area. We fully recognise the importance of international collaboration in nuclear research and development, and we will ensure this continues by seeking alternative arrangements for our collaboration in international fusion research and development projects.

Reference has already been made to the JET project, which is based in Oxfordshire. At present, the financial commitment to JET runs to 2018 and there are proposals that that should be extended to 2020. We are committed to seeing that extension.

There is also the ITER project, which is to be based in France and is not limited to Euratom members; it is hoped that that will be operational by 2025. Again, we can foresee a commitment to further fusion research in that context.

[Lord Hutton of Furness]

I really did not want to interrupt the Minister; he has been very candid and helpful. Is it the Government’s intention to seek associate membership status of the Euratom treaty in order to continue to participate in the research programme at Cadarache?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

It is not at present, as I understand it, our determined intention to seek associate member status, but that will be a matter for discussion in negotiation.

Let us be clear: this is an area where there is enormous mutual interest. It is not just the UK as a supplicant, putting its hand out. We are one of the world’s leaders in nuclear research and development. We have something to offer our partners, just as they have something to offer us. That is how we see it: a continuing partnership, albeit one in which we cannot credibly continue with the institutions of the EU, which are central to the operation of Euratom itself.

[Lord Hutton of Furness]

But the only way that non-EU members of Euratom have been able to contribute and participate in the research programmes has been through associate membership.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I fully appreciate the noble Lord’s point. That is why we will engage with Euratom and its members in order to determine continuity. Whether it will be by associate membership or by means of some additional agreement has yet to be determined.

A number of points were raised about whether we can maintain trade and standards. We trade, we have safety standards and we intend to maintain them. We had the opportunity to secure mutual recognition of our standards and trade by means of international nuclear co-operation agreements.

I have been asked by a number of noble Lords about the question of strategy and consultation. Let me be clear: we are at the beginning of this process, not at the end of it. We appreciate the need to develop a clear strategy in order to implement our desire for continuing co-operation with Euratom going forward.

A number of particular questions were posed with regard to where we were on certain issues of strategy and relationships with other international nuclear partners and how we intended to demonstrate the development of our forward strategy for nuclear research and development. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, raised the question of how important this was in the context of the proportion of our energy that is actually provided by nuclear installations. I understand that the figure is 17%, rather than the figure he quoted.