Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

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

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) struck the right note when she said this is a serious debate. We have to discuss these issues with due seriousness, and my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) clearly set out our serious concerns about the Bill in her opening contribution.

The Bill should be unnecessary, and the Opposition hope it may yet be so. What the Government should be doing is setting their goal as the UK’s continued participation in Euratom as a member, if possible, or as close to that relationship as we can get. There is a lot of cross-party agreement on that goal—I exempt the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who extravagantly celebrated our crashing out of Euratom—but in the Westminster Hall debate on the issue back in July, ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who is a champion of this sector, even the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who was here earlier and who is not a noted dove on these issues, said that we should be working

“towards something like associate membership.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2017; Vol. 627, c. 96WH.]

It appeared then that the barrier to that relationship was the role of the European Court of Justice, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) pointed out. Indeed, the former chief of staff to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer have both suggested that that is why Euratom was linked to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, and the responsibility for that lies with the Prime Minister. It is deeply irresponsible to put our nuclear industry at risk because of a reckless and ideological decision to make the future role of the ECJ a red line in all matters relating to Brexit.

As hon. Members have pointed out, and as the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in his opening remarks, the Bill provides for safeguarding arrangements for all civilian nuclear facilities in the UK, which is clearly needed if we leave Euratom, but that is only one part of what is at risk. The wider issues were exercised in the Government’s own position paper, which was issued over the summer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) pointed out, Euratom oversees the transport of nuclear fuel across the EU and enables vital co-operation on information, infrastructure and funding of nuclear energy. It is the legal owner of all nuclear material, and the legal purchaser, certifier and guarantor of any nuclear materials and technologies that the UK purchases. That includes, for example, our nuclear trade with the United States.

Euratom has helped us become a world leader in nuclear research and development. In their position paper on the issue, the Government rightly said that they want a “close and working relationship” with Euratom, and we welcome that. That position paper set out six high-level principles for nuclear materials and safeguards that would frame their approach to the issue. So may I ask the Minister to explain why the Bill fails to address five of those six high-level principles, which are the Government’s own objectives?

Why is the Bill so limited in its scope? Is that because the Government aim to secure ongoing membership and have just brought this Bill forward as a contingency? Will the Minister confirm the answer that I understood the Secretary of State to give to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill): that it is the Government’s intention to seek associate membership? Is it because their thinking has not advanced sufficiently on all the other issues connected with our membership of Euratom? Or is it, as was said by some of the more excitable Conservative Members, such as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), that they are looking forward to crashing out of Euratom—[Interruption.] Perhaps “excitable” was not quite the right word, but he was working towards it. Given that the Prime Minister has talked it up, will the Minister say what work has been done on a no-deal scenario in the event that we leave Euratom in the way that some Conservative Members would seem to like?

[Tom Pursglove]

Is not the whole purpose of a Bill such as this to stop anybody crashing out? The hon. Gentleman is using totally irresponsible language.

[Paul Blomfield]

I agree that it is irresponsible language and I am sorry to have heard it from some Conservative Members during this debate.

This is an important issue and the sector is hugely important, as the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) pointed out in a thoughtful and informed contribution when she said that it is important that we get this right. The Government therefore need to answer some key questions. The ONR cannot exercise these new powers until it has a voluntary offer agreement and additional protocol from the IAEA for a UK safeguards regime. What work has been done on that and when do the Government anticipate that will be ratified? What have the Government done to ensure that the ONR has the necessary skills to take on the safeguarding of nuclear material? Euratom employs 160 people on safeguarding, 25% of whom work on UK installations, whereas the ONR currently employs eight staff. I understand that it takes five years to train a nuclear safeguards inspector. Two years will not be long enough to reskill the necessary number of inspectors. Are plans under way to re-employ the current Euratom officials or do the Government have another contingency up their sleeve?

[Dr Drew]

The problem is that the nuclear industry is not currently able to call on that level of expertise. It already suffers because of a shortage of labour in many parts of the industry, so that can only get worse.

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I am coming straight to. As a number of Members have mentioned, it is planned to halve the current Government grant to the ONR by 2020. I recognise that this is only one part of the ONR’s funding, but can the Minister confirm that that is no longer the Government’s intention? Will he outline what their new funding plans would be, given the additional responsibilities they are seeking to place on the ONR?

An important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), and echoed by some others, was that outside Euratom the Government would have to negotiate individual nuclear collaboration agreements not simply with Euratom, but with every country outside of the EU with which we currently co-operate through our membership, including the US, China, Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan and South Korea. The right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) mentioned the example of the United States. A section 123 agreement with the US—a legal necessity if we are to trade nuclear goods with the US—would have to go through the Senate and the House of Representatives, with final sign-off needed from the President. Does the Minister really believe it is possible to achieve that in the time we have left?

What provisions have been put in place to ensure that normal business in the UK is not disrupted? As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) pointed out, an important part of that will be ensuring that the UK has the right skills to build, operate and decommission nuclear power stations. What will be the Government’s migration policy for the nuclear worker who previously enjoyed free movement under the provision of the Euratom treaty?

A key benefit of the UK’s involvement in Euratom has been our participation in R and D programmes. The Government have given limited commitments on Culham, but what are their wider intentions on the full Euratom work programme from 2019-20 onward?

Seventeen months does not give us much time to resolve such a huge number of issues. The paralysis at the heart of the negotiations, created by the divisions at the heart of the Government, do not give us much confidence that the issues can be resolved within the time available. One further key question: will the Government seek to continue membership of Euratom—or to come to an arrangement that replicates the benefits and responsibilities of that membership—for a transitional period after we leave the EU in March 2019?

The Bill is inadequate. It fails to address so many of the vital questions that the Government themselves raised in their own position paper. It gives the Secretary of State powers to amend legislation without reference to the House—powers that, although narrower in scope, in many ways go further than those in the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. For these reasons, we cannot support it. Nevertheless, we recognise that, if the worst comes to the worst—as some Government Members seem to anticipate—and we crash out without agreement, we would be in breach of our international responsibilities under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons if we do not have a safeguarding regime in place. For that reason, we will seek to amend the Bill significantly in Committee, but we will not oppose it tonight.