Nuclear Safeguards (Fissionable Material and Relevant International Agreements) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing these regulations. I declare my interest as a consultant to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and as a member of the advisory board of Penultimate Power.

The introduction of our own nuclear safeguards regime, supervised by the ONR, should enable us to comply with IAEA standards in a less cumbersome and less expensive manner than when we were able to while a member of Euratom. We no longer need to rely on complicated verification processes that do nothing to ensure full compliance with IAEA standards. Our NCAs of course ensure that our independent safeguards regime will permit no diminution whatever in the maintenance of the highest possible standards.

However, can my noble friend the Minister confirm that under our independent regime we no longer have issues such as those faced by Urenco in the past? These included the requirement for Euratom’s approval of any new contract and firm declarations on end use for the material. All that required much expensive bureaucracy, which added nothing to the agreements with, and undertakings to, the IAEA, which were not needed by non-European competitors.

Of course, UK companies remain fully covered by the Government’s undertakings to the IAEA, and any shipments from the UK have to meet the requirements of UK export controls. However, it is not clear yet whether, after the inevitable teething problems, the Government have got to grips with the need to ensure that costs and bureaucracy are reduced to the maximum extent compatible with the necessary maintenance of the highest international standards.

I welcome the introduction of these regulations, whose effect is to add technology to the scope of the UK-Japan NCA through its amending protocol. This will enable the ONR to ensure the UK’s compliance with the amending protocol. Will the Minister confirm that the Government agree that co-operation with Japan in civil nuclear power is even more important than it has been until now? The energy White Paper recognises the need for at least one more major large new nuclear power station project, besides confirming the Government’s intention to continue to support the development of SMR and AMR technologies.

As the Minister is aware, Wylfa is perhaps the best available site for a nuclear power station in the country, if not in Europe. Is she also aware that Hitachi waited some 18 months after its decision to suspend the project before cancelling it, and that if the Government had come forward with additional financial support and a committed operator within that time, the project might have been rescued as a tripartite UK-Japan-US project? Would that not also have sent a very positive message about our trade and investment relationship with Japan, coming hard on the heels of the signing of the CEPA, and provided strong support for our tilt towards the Indo-Pacific, so important for the success of global Britain?

Does the Minister also agree that it is important that, where possible, major investors in our nuclear energy projects should be from countries whose security and defence interests are aligned with our own? What steps are the Government taking to revive the Horizon project? Does she agree that it is in our interests for them also to support other UK-Japan nuclear projects such as that on which Penultimate Power is collaborating with the JAEA to commercialise its high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology in this country?