Nuclear Safeguards Bill (Second sitting)

Mary Robinson Excerpts

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

[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.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

Q What do you see as the biggest risks to the industry of leaving Euratom?

Angela Hepworth: On the safeguards regime first, our concern is about the amount that has to be done to have the safeguarding regime in place in time. As I say, in principle we are very happy with the idea that a domestic regime should be established, rather than the Euratom safeguards regime, but we are conscious that there is a lot to do in the time available to get that regime in place. It is not the principle of it; it is the timing and the implementation.

Likewise, we are conscious that the other key components that we need to have in place include a replacement agreement with Euratom, which would cover issues relating to the ownership of nuclear material, and our future trading relations with Europe for nuclear materials. Obviously, that is subject to the negotiations that are going on in Brussels at the moment. I have regular contact with the officials who are leading those negotiations, and we are fully aligned with the objectives they are perusing. Again, it is subject to the success of those negotiations.

There are other key things that have to be put in place. We will need nuclear co-operation agreements with key third countries. I have been told that the negotiations are under way and are progressing well. Again, our concern is the timing and how it fits with the timing of putting a safeguards regime in place. Those agreements cannot be finalised until there is certainty about the domestic safeguards regime, so it is about the timing of getting all of that done.

The other key issue for us is the movement of people. We are an international business, and the nuclear industry is an international industry. We rely on having access to experts from Europe and further afield. The roles in the company that most draw on skills from overseas are engineering roles—we are reliant on being able to draw in engineers. Building Hinkley Point will require a workforce of 25,000 people. We are doing an awful lot to try to build up skills in the UK, but we expect that, to deliver Hinkley, we will need to be able to draw on workers from overseas. I would not expect that to be solved within the Euratom arena, but that is a key issue for us as a nuclear operator.

We also have to ensure that we have got an export control regime in place and support for nuclear R and D. Those are the key issues for us relating to Euratom.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

May I ask you about the Euratom costs relating to safeguarding, which may not go to Euratom but to the Office for Nuclear Regulation as a result of the transfer of responsibility for safeguarding from Euratom to ONR? I understand that EDF Energy already pays into ONR as a contribution to its general costs, but does not pay anything to Euratom for safeguarding. Is that right?

Angela Hepworth: That is right. We have to distinguish what we pay for from the ONR at the moment. As a nuclear operator, we are required to comply with certain safety and security regulations, and we pay for the ONR’s role in inspecting our stations to ensure we comply with our obligations. That is absolutely right, and we expect that to continue. There is a distinction to be drawn between that and compliance with the safeguarding regime, which is the responsibility of a member state. At the moment, the UK Government pays for that to be done via its contributions to the EU budget. As that is a member state responsibility, it is clear to us that it should be the UK Government who meet those costs in the future, rather than look to the industry to cover them.

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[Alex Norris]

Q The cohort you teach at the moment in Manchester—where are they from?

Professor Matthews: There are two main programmes I teach on. One is the new generation centre for doctoral training. That is a collaboration between five universities in the north of England and we have a cohort of about 25 a year. That has been going on for the last five years. Almost all of them are British nationals from diverse backgrounds. We have one or two foreign nationals in there, but they are the exception. The other programme I teach on is the nuclear professional development programme, which is a master’s degree for people working part time who are managers in the nuclear industry in the UK. We have had one or two foreign students on that—I even had a commander in the Brazilian navy—but most of the people are British nationals working in our nuclear industry.

[Mary Robinson]

Q It is great to know that in Manchester you train up these great future scientists; they are the technical, highly skilled jobs that we need. One of your issues and concerns seems to be about having sufficient staff to man the safeguarding progress at a time of high build, because we are building new power stations—so there is that to factor in, as well. To what extent is this an exciting time in the industry for jobs and high-skilled jobs, as well as a challenging one?

Professor Matthews: It has been a difficult time for us, because there was such a long delay in the announcement of the final investment decision for Hinkley Point C. That made people relax, so it has proved easier to recruit good engineers to join our nuclear programmes at the university as a result. Certainly, the prospect of building 16 GW of nuclear reactors is stimulating the people moving into the industry. But it is not only that. We have to cope with the problems of legacy, decommissioning and radwaste management. There are nuclear fuel cycle industries, very likely with both fuel manufacture and enrichment. All these things require the nuclear safeguards to be operating, and any interruption in that—we are talking about something like £10 billion a year in UK activity that would be interrupted.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

Q When you say £10 billion, what is that related to?

Professor Matthews: That is related to the operation of nuclear power stations in the fuel cycle industry, which consists of processing and manufacturing nuclear fuels, manufacturing the nuclear fuel elements, and enrichment of uranium. The work still going on at Sellafield on reprocessing will stop shortly, but there is the handling of materials from Sellafield for decommissioning and radwaste management, all of which contain higher actinides and uranium, which are covered by the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000. We need to know what is going into the waste to ensure that we are not making a plutonium mine or something that someone could tap in the future.

[Mary Robinson]

Q So the training that you are doing and undertaking with the students in Manchester is crucial to the future.

Professor Matthews: Yes, but it is not enough, even at the rate that we are going. We have two major doctoral programmes in the UK that we co-operate with—one in the south with Imperial College, Cambridge, and the Open University, and one that we have with five universities in the north. That is only about 50 students a year. We need to bring into the industry hundreds of students a year, which means that we must be able to bring in people from around the world, mainly from Europe, but also from more widely around the world.

There is an opportunity from Germany at the moment—its industry is contracting because it is shutting down plants. It does not seem to be managing the decommissioning problem very well, so people are leaving Germany very rapidly.

[Mary Robinson]

Q Are they being attracted here?

Professor Matthews: They were, but they are not any more.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q Professor, could we return to your primary concern, which we have also exercised with previous witnesses? It concerns the ability of the ONR to recruit sufficient inspectors by March 2019—you helpfully clarified the difference between safeguarding inspectors and safety inspectors. How likely is it that the ONR could meet the staffing levels necessary to take over the Euratom function in safeguarding by that date?

Professor Matthews: I heard the recording this morning of the ONR representative. It looks unlikely that it will be fully functioning by March in two years’ time. The question is: how can we bridge the gap until everything is working properly?