Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, the Nuclear Safeguards Bill is slim by the standards of Brexit Bills, but this belies the importance of the issues it addresses. The Bill makes provisions for the eventuality that the UK will leave the European Atomic Energy Community, or Euratom, to give its common name. In its place, we should have to establish a new safeguards regime to oversee the security of our nuclear materials. Euratom has provided much more for us than an inspection regime for ensuring that radioactive material does not fall into the wrong hands. It governs the supply of fuel and all the nuclear engineering materials and equipment that come to us from abroad. It facilitates international exchanges of personnel trained in nuclear technology. It governs the acquisition and supply of medical radioactive isotopes and it funds an extensive nuclear research and development programme.

Euratom is governed by the International Atomic Energy Agency—the IAEA—which is an organisation affiliated to the United Nations. It mediates our relationships with third-party countries. On leaving Euratom, we should have to establish individual nuclear treaties with each of those nations. Even now, there remains doubt as to whether it is necessary, in any case, for the UK to sever its connection with Euratom. The legal opinions on the matter have been divided. It is clear that the Ministers most closely involved are far from enthusiastic about the prospect of this divorce.

The die was cast at the beginning of 2017 when, in a flurry of Written and Oral Statements, the Government asserted that there would be no room for compromise in exiting the European Union. Thus, in a speech on 17 January, the Prime Minister asserted that there is to be no,

“partial membership of the European Union, associate membership … or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out …We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave”.

Euratom is an international organisation founded in 1957, as we have heard, and is legally distinct from the European Union. However, since the European Court of Justice plays a marginal role in its affairs, Euratom was judged to be half in the European Union and, therefore, an organisation that the UK is bound to leave.

During Second Reading of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill in the Commons on 16 October 2017, the Minister Greg Clark emphasised:

“Triggering article 50 of the treaty on European Union also requires triggering article 50 on membership of Euratom”.


He also asserted:

“That is not just the Government’s view; it is the European Commission’s view, too”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/10/17; col. 618.]


He proceeded to quote a declaration to this effect that had been made in the European Parliament. It appears that the European Commission and the European Parliament have been happy to go along with the view of the UK Government. The Government’s insistence on a clean break from European institutions has led to a perverse outcome that we are now coming to regret. It is arguable that, had we taken a different approach at the outset, we would not now be faced with the need to enact the present Bill. The trouble that is entailed in leaving Euratom might be mitigated by the proposed two-year transition period after our formal departure from the European Union in March 2019.

Leaving Euratom imposes tasks that would be impossible to accomplish by that date of departure. There have been numerous testimonies regarding the expense and the damage that will result from leaving Euratom, and they bear some repeating. In the UK, more than 100 facilities and locations are currently subject to Euratom safeguards and inspections. The Office for Nuclear Regulation—the ONR—which is the UK’s nuclear regulatory agency, has repeatedly asserted that it will be unable to implement equivalent safeguarding standards by March 2019. To deliver the new domestic regime, the ONR will need to double the number of its inspectors by 2019 and triple the number by 2021. The costs of purchasing and installing replacement equipment would, in its testimony,

“likely be well in excess of £150m”.

Once established, the regime is expected to involve an ongoing cost of £10 million per annum. Without safeguards and nuclear co-operation agreements, critical areas of nuclear trade and research collaboration would cease. The United States, on which we depend for nuclear equipment, will not trade with us unless a regime is in place. Moreover, a new safeguards regime will need to be implemented before any nuclear co-operation agreements can be concluded and ratified. That is to say, none of the necessary third-party nuclear co-operation agreements, or NCAs, can be negotiated in advance of a settled regime.

At present, in excess of 20% of our power is provided by nuclear energy. The flow of nuclear goods and services that are required to sustain this output cannot continue without a safeguards regime. The construction of new nuclear power stations requires the importation of specialised equipment and personnel that is regulated by the codes of the IAEA. EDF, which is overseeing the construction of a nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, has expressed grave anxieties in this connection. In a very telling memorandum, it has revealed the extent of the international co-operation that was required to overcome a seemingly minor operational problem affecting the Sizewell B reactor, which arose when a seal on one of the heating elements failed. The supply chain involved France and the USA as well as the UK. Its point is that an impaired access to the international supply chain is bound to prejudice the safe and reliable operation of our nuclear power stations.

The UK hosts important nuclear research facilities, including the Joint European Torus at Culham, which is currently funded largely by Euratom. The Government have undertaken to meet the costs of JET until 2020. Thereafter, the future of the Culham enterprise is in doubt.

The next phase of the international fusion programme entails the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, which is being constructed in Provence, France. ITER, which will exploit the developments at Culham, is one step away from an operational power plant. If we cease to be fully involved in this enterprise, we will squander our intellectual capital and forgo some significant business opportunities for British enterprises.

These troubles, and more besides, are the consequence of an ill-considered and intransigent attitude on the part of the Government in pursuit of their Brexit agenda. These difficulties could be mitigated to some extent if we were prepared to contract the delivery of our safeguards regime to Euratom, while maintaining our overall responsibility. In fact, this has been proposed in a recent report of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee of the House of Commons. There is no other reasonable course of action.