Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Mark Menzies Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

Once again, my hon. Friend makes the point in the most telling way. If we are providing no illumination to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), we are obviously providing a vast amount of humorous entertainment; I am glad she sees this issue as being so hysterically funny. I do not think setting a regulatory regime to allow all of our constituents to have ready access to a medical treatment is anything particularly to laugh about. People can accuse me of being po-faced and a prig if they so wish, and I could almost hear the Twittersphere doing just that as the words left my mouth, but I do not see this as a particularly funny point. My hon. Friend has made the point tellingly: countries that are not part of Euratom are importing isotopes in due time so that their shelf life does not expire. Unless we have some peculiar, Machiavellian, under-the-counter sort of plan to deny people medical treatment by putting the largest possible tariff barriers on these things and making sure that the inventor carries them across the channel in some sort of purpose-made velvet case that has been hand-sewn by his ancient grandmother, I really do not think this is going to be the situation. Therefore, the concern raised by medics can now be set aside.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that medical isotopes and some associated equipment are also very high value, so it is not in the interests of those who manufacture and seek to export to us to put obstacles in the way of selling high-value, highly profitable pieces of equipment or machinery, be they the isotopes or anything related to them?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend gets the point, because he takes a Conservative approach to the operation of the economy. People in Britain want to buy something. We do not make it, but some countries overseas do. But we have also heard this, “We make too much for our domestic market and we want to sell it overseas. We have been doing this for years, but, do you know what? Just to bite off our nose to spite our face, we’ll stop doing it.” That is the crux of the argument we have heard from the hon. Members for North Ayrshire and Arran and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). I would say it was bizarre if it were not so careless.

Let me conclude my remarks by returning to the point about the value—soft as well as hard—to UK plc of the collaborative opportunities for research that membership of an organisation such as Euratom presents. We have heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) about the supply chain, the jobs and the offshoots of economic activity that flow from this. If we are talking about background research, I understand that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran has a nuclear facility in her constituency. One can only presume that she has constituents who work in it, but she said precious little about them in her speech—

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[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am devastated by the news that I have been cut down to a mere six minutes, but I will do what I can.

This nuclear safeguard Bill is of real importance not just to me and to my constituency, but to the 1,200 people who work at Springfields nuclear fuels in my constituency. Springfields is at the heart of the British nuclear industry. We are the only site in the UK to manufacture nuclear fuel. As we have already heard this evening, 21% of the UK’s electricity production is produced from nuclear energy, and a great swathe of that is from nuclear fuel manufactured in Fylde.

Whenever I hear the phrase “northern powerhouse”, I think not just of the nuclear industry in the north-west, but of the nuclear fuel that is manufactured in my Fylde constituency. I have met both the workforce and the management in recent months. Initially, there were some real concerns over the UK’s possible exit from Euratom and what that would mean for the continuity of supply. However, in conversations with the Minister, I have been deeply reassured by the fact that this is a Government who are working towards the possibility of remaining a member of Euratom and, if we cannot do that, of ensuring that we are safeguarding Britain’s civil nuclear interests by having these measures firmly in place in this Bill.

This is not just about dealing with trade between the UK and Europe, important though that is. Springfields Fuels is owned by Westinghouse, a company with quite complex ownership—both Japanese and American footprints. Therefore, any deal or legislation must be compliant with what our Japanese and American partners have in place. I am reassured by the Minister’s words in our meeting last week and in the debate this evening that this Bill will, indeed, cover that.

The nuclear industry must be able to trade from the first post-Brexit moment. Without implementation of the safeguards in the Bill, the UK would be unable to put the nuclear co-operation agreements in place in the future. Those are currently provided under the Euratom regime and they are vital because this is about not just dealing with Europe, but all our international partnerships. We are not just talking about nuclear fuel in its completed form, but oxides, pellets and the various added-value products that a company such as Springfields Fuels puts into the nuclear supply chain. If we do not get this right, the jobs of British people could ultimately be at risk and moved elsewhere. It is not about keeping lawyers busy. I am delighted that the Minister understands that, has looked at all aspects of the UK civil nuclear industry and has made sure that the measures will protect not just the nuclear industry in the abstract sense, but real people and real jobs now and in the future. That is something for which we should be grateful.

Time is working against me, so I will move on to my final point. I ask the Minister to ensure that the measures in the Bill protect future programmes, one of the most important of which is that of small modular reactors. If the United Kingdom gets it right, we could be world leaders in this technology. That would be a game-changer for the nuclear supply chain. Fuel would be manufactured in the UK. In fact, huge proportions of everything—from research and development through to manufacture—could be done in the UK. That would become a highly exportable technology. Rather than importing much of the new nuclear technology from overseas, the United Kingdom can own it and, surely, emerging new nuclear technology must be at the forefront of shaping our post-Brexit destiny. I hope that the Minister can assure me that the Government will think about and protect SMRs in the detail of the legislation. That is also important for Moorside. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who is not currently in her place, is a passionate campaigner for Moorside, and such technology would bring jobs to Cumbria. The fuel from Moorside would also be manufactured at Springfields Fuels nuclear plant. Therefore, the measures in the Bill really are important to ensuring jobs and the futures of all our economies, particularly those in the north-west.