Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the cost to public purse of the (a) set-up of a domestic nuclear safeguards regime and (b) ongoing running of a domestic nuclear safeguards regime.

Current estimates of set-up and running costs are set out in paragraph 49 of the Explanatory Notes to the Nuclear Safeguards Bill (Bill 109) published on 11th October 2017. The Department will allocate to the Office for Nuclear Regulation the funding necessary, estimated at potentially up to £10 million, to set up the regime, and is likely to involve an on-going cost of around £10 million a year.