Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

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

[Greg Clark]

Such consultation is the universal practice in the nuclear sector. The hon. Gentleman might serve on the Bill Committee, so perhaps he will be able to interrogate the issues he raises, but at every point the nuclear sector proceeds not through the unilateral fiat of Governments but appropriately, on the basis of expert advice. That is the culture of the nuclear industry and it will continue.

As I set out for the House in my written statement in September, our intention is for the new domestic regime to exceed the standard that the international community would expect from the UK as a member of the IAEA. The objective is for it to be as robust and comprehensive as that currently provided by Euratom. We are perfectly satisfied with the high standards that have prevailed under Euratom, so we do not want to take the opportunity to weaken them. As I have mentioned, we will also be agreeing new safeguards agreements with the IAEA. My officials have had meetings with officials from the IAEA at their headquarters in Vienna to take the discussions forward, and I am pleased to report that they are progressing extremely well.

On other aspects of the Euratom relationship, we have made it clear that we want to continue the successful co-operation. In June, I announced the Government’s commitment to underwrite the UK’s fair share of the costs for the Joint European Torus—the leading nuclear fusion facility in Oxfordshire—which supports 1,300 jobs, and we will continue to do that.

Let me briefly take the House through the clauses of the Bill. It is not a long Bill, as the House knows. Clause 1 amends the Energy Act 2013 to replace the Office for Nuclear Regulation’s existing nuclear safeguards purposes with a new definition. The ONR will regulate the new nuclear safeguards regime using its existing relevant functions and powers, so the measure is about clarifying its purposes. Clause 1 will also amend the Act by creating new powers so that we can set out in regulations the detail of the domestic safeguards regime, such as on accounting, reporting, and control and inspection arrangements.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Nuclear Industry Association has made it absolutely clear that this legislation is necessary, but it has also spelled out that the best outcome would be for the UK to continue with some form of membership of Euratom. Will my right hon. Friend give the House an idea of whether he feels that the discussions so far with Euratom make it likely that we will be able to achieve some form of continuation of the existing arrangement?

[Greg Clark]

As I have made it repeatedly clear, we regard the arrangements with Euratom as having served this country well and we want to see maximum continuity. As far as I can see, all members of the nuclear industry regard that as being the case. This is a good example of where I hope it will be possible to agree quickly and with a maximum of consensus a regime that continues the high standards that we have observed.

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[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who confirmed that the Liberal Democrats will support the Bill tonight. Indeed, all Members worried about the possibility of the UK falling off a cliff-edge without future arrangements as a result of leaving the EU should support this Bill. It is an important step to avoiding that situation, and this plan B is precisely why the Nuclear Industry Association has described it as “a necessary legislative step.”

It is therefore not a little ironic that the party that wants to have nothing to do with nuclear power, is presumably worried about safeguards, and cannot make a speech without chanting the words “Hard Tory Brexit” appears to be against a contingency plan to prevent precisely that wild accusation from coming true for the nuclear sector. The points made against this Bill by the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), and, indeed, by the Labour party spokesman, the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), cannot therefore be about a lack of preparation for any possibility of disagreement about sensible third-party status with Euratom being secured by negotiation, and it must be clear that anyone voting against the Bill tonight will, indeed, be voting for a very hard Brexit for nuclear energy.

The truth is that we must leave to one side the bizarre positions adopted by the formal two leading Opposition parties, and focus on the Bill itself and the comments of individual Members of Parliament, including the hon. Members for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), and my party colleagues, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who has worked in the nuclear industry.

This is a contingency Bill. We all want a form of associative membership with Euratom that replicates existing arrangements. That is the clear position of the entire sector, represented either by the NIA or EDF Energy, the operator of all our existing nuclear power stations, with its operational headquarters in Barnwood in my constituency. It is telling that EDF Energy has said, first, that it appreciates the Government’s “early and constructive engagement on this issue with us”, and, secondly—to deal with some elements of scaremongering —that the UK has extremely “robust” arrangements for safety and security, and, “whatever the status of our membership of Euratom, there is no question but that this will continue to be the case.”

The NIA calls this Bill a welcome first step, but it does raise some questions, and I would be grateful if the Minister, in winding up, responded to some of the following questions. First, will he confirm that a bilateral US-UK nuclear co-operation agreement would be put in place to secure US components for Sizewell B in the event of Euratom’s NCAs and common market not being available to us, presumably through a voluntary offer safeguards agreement with the IAEA? Secondly, will he confirm that our funding for the Joint European Torus—or JET—project, which continues to 2020, will be extended, assuming there is a new relationship with Euratom? Thirdly, will he clarify the contingency process for the movement of nuclear material, goods, people, information and services to be agreed with the Euratom Supply Agency? Finally, will he confirm that our preferred arrangement for the period of transition is as close as possible to the current status quo?

Two other points are worth mentioning. They are about matters that the Bill does not cover. First, the NIA has spelt out clearly that Euratom does not manage the safety of the UK’s nuclear sites, which is, and always has been, determined by the UK, overseen by the Office for Nuclear Regulation; it is important that all our constituents understand that. Secondly, as the Secretary of State spelt out earlier, the radioisotopes are not special fissile nuclear material and their availability will absolutely not be impacted by our leaving Euratom. That is incredibly important for anyone who is worried about the impact of this on our health service.

This is a contingency Bill. The Government recognise our clear goal of securing third-party status with Euratom so that we can have the continuity that is clearly being sought by the entire civil nuclear sector, but they are also putting in place legislative arrangements for the Office for Nuclear Regulation to carry out the nuclear safeguarding work currently done by Euratom if, for whatever reason, that does not happen. The arguments—that is a flattering word to use—put up by Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition were riddled with inconsistencies, as their own Members have shown. However, I would not disagree with anything said by the hon. Member for Leeds West, especially on transition and associate membership. I hope that, recognising the importance of contingency planning as she does, she and indeed all Members of this House will, like me, vote for the Bill tonight.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, indeed. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman and I are going to agree substantially on this. We regard the Bill as necessary in the context of the possibility that, after Brexit, no arrangements can be brought about with Euratom, either associate membership or full membership. The Bill will then ensure that the nuclear industry is clear about its future and that the arrangements for our international obligations can be properly carried out in the absence of those arrangements. We have indeed been constructive and helpful during the Bill’s whole passage through Parliament. However, that does not detract from our thinking that a number of its procedural elements should be strengthened in relation to what we do while it is gestating and coming to potential fruition after the point at which the things that we are doing may not have had any success.

The hon. Gentleman will see that in some of our amendments we are also trying to make sure that Parliament is fully informed of what processes are under way while we get to the position that the Bill could, or could not, come into operation. That is important for Parliament’s sake. After all, we are in new territory with regard to this Bill, and we therefore have to do a number of new things in legislation that fit the bill for our future arrangements. That is essentially the beginning and end of what we are trying to do through this group of amendments.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am puzzled why new clause 1 is necessary. All its ingredients are issues that form part of the transition negotiations that our country is going through with the European Commission. It therefore seems bizarre to try to legislate that

“conditions under which the UK is a member of EURATOM before exit day shall continue to apply”

during the transition. On that basis, we would be legislating for all sorts of things that form part of the negotiations to continue during the transition. What would the hon. Gentleman say to that?

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman has slightly got ahead of me, because I started by talking about new clause 2, and I am about to start talking about new clause 1. He thinks that new clause 1 may be superfluous. I would suggest that because this Bill is about procedure as much as fact, the new clause sets out a procedure that we need to undertake in the event of certain things not happening, and it is important that a number of those possible events are covered in the Bill. Should it not prove possible to remain a member of Euratom, for various reasons, it is important to consider the idea of a transition period after which we would then be in a position to fully carry out our obligations to the IAEA and other agencies separate from Euratom. That, indeed, is what the Bill is essentially trying to bring about. The Bill is predicated on the notion that membership or association with Euratom will not be possible, and it is therefore necessary to recreate the arrangements for nuclear safeguarding that have served us so well in a solely domestic form and thereby enabled us to negotiate separate voluntary arrangements with the IAEA and, indeed, separate bilateral agreements with a number of other countries, including the United States, Australia, Japan, and Canada.

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[Dr Whitehead]

I would have thought that the Bill, in whatever form it eventually emerges, demonstrates the opposite. Yes, there are a number of negotiations to be undertaken. We do not yet know the results of those negotiations. We have not left Euratom, which, it is generally agreed, has served our purposes very well. The new clause would enable us to signal, in the event of all those negotiations not working, that we are nevertheless still able to fulfil our obligations to the IAEA and to show it that we have a regime in place that does the business with regard to nuclear safeguarding from the point of view of the IAEA’s concerns. Putting forward this Bill as a contingency measure, as the Secretary of State said was the case, is important in the uncertain position we are in at the moment. Nevertheless, we will need certainty, over a relatively short period, with the bodies that are responsible for policing and organising the nuclear non-proliferation treaties and the whole arrangements relating to nuclear safeguarding. I think, if I may say so, that that is the right way to do it as far as putting a Bill before the House is concerned. The Opposition do not dispute that: we think it is right to have the Bill as a contingency. Our concern, however, is whether there are sufficient elements to the process part of the Bill to ensure that it works as well as it could. That is really the point of difference on the Bill at the moment.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman knows that this is incredibly important to him and several of his colleagues, and it is incredibly important to me, with EDF Energy’s operational headquarters for nuclear in my constituency and Horizon just down the road, so we are all coming from the same point. His specific proposal—I am talking about new clause 1 again—is very specific. It even mentions a period of two years, although the transition period that is being negotiated may well come to an end at the end of 2020. In effect, he is asking the Government to legislate on something over which they do not have control. Surely the better approach is to plan for the contingency, as he has already agreed, and recognise that the other elements—Euratom and other agencies—are all subject to a negotiation that this House cannot, by its nature, control.

[Dr Whitehead]

That is a little strange in that the Prime Minister referred to transition periods for the overall EU negotiations in her Florence speech, and the Secretary of State did so strongly in his written statement on 11 January. If the hon. Gentleman wants to be assured, as far as the nuclear industry is concerned, that there will be a seamless transition at the point at which we are no longer a member of Euratom, I would have thought he ought to be strongly in favour of aspiring to a transition period. As he knows and we know, the process of recreating in the UK all the things that have been done by Euratom for 40 years—we will discuss that later—will be extremely difficult, lengthy and problematic. It will certainly, in the opinion of many people, be extremely difficult to achieve in the period ahead if we corral those negotiations and are to complete them by March 2019. If he thought about it for a moment, he would recognise that the last thing we could conceivably want is a period of, in effect, nuclear shutdown, or of defaulting on our international obligations because we are not ready to carry them out on Brexit. That is why a transition period may be so important.

[Richard Graham]

Yes, of course we all want a transition period, which is precisely a part of the negotiations. What I struggle to understand is that the scenario the hon. Gentleman describes is in effect not within our control. The transition we are seeking is being negotiated—in fact, the Minister and other Front Benchers have made it absolutely clear several times that we want to continue the relationship with Euratom as deeply as possible—but I cannot see the need, in a legislative context, for his proposed new clause 1. In fact, I do not believe it would be possible for any Government conceivably to agree to it.

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[Albert Owen]

Well, let us clear this up now. I invite the Minister to say on behalf of the Government whether it is his intention—or their intention, if he is not in his post at the time—to negotiate associate membership. Yes or no? Otherwise, we are just guessing that the Government will negotiate some form of associate or third-party membership. I need to know these things from the Government, because we do not have anything in front of us. What we have today is a group of new clauses and amendments that would give us the certainty that we need. The industry is crying out for that, so I want to hear from the Minister.

[Richard Graham]

rose—

[Albert Owen]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman cannot speak on behalf of the Minister, but I will be interested to hear what he has to say.

[Richard Graham]

It strikes me as bizarre that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are taking their current line. I can only assume that that is either because they want to try to make the political point that the Government and the Conservative party do not want to have a future relationship with Euratom, which is clearly wrong—the Minister will confirm that when he speaks—or because the hon. Gentleman wants to score a political point with an industry that I know is dear to his heart by suggesting that, somehow, he is being more supportive by trying to write into law something that cannot be written into law. What is needed today—we will hear this from the Minister—is absolute confirmation of the Government’s intention to continue to have as close a relationship with Euratom as possible. That is what will be negotiated. It cannot be legislated for, otherwise we would do the same thing for all the many other organisations in Europe with which we might want to have a future relationship. All of that will be covered in the transition talks in Brussels.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He knows me quite well, and I do not think he would accuse me of scoring political points. I have said consistently since before the Bill was introduced that we need clarity, whether we have full membership of Euratom, associate membership, or a third-party agreement.