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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to evaluate the suitability of offshore sites at (1) 5km, (2) 20km, and (3) other distances from the shoreline for the disposal of nuclear waste.

The Government has undertaken generic design work on the construction requirements for a Geological Disposal Facility, which demonstrate that the depth of the underground facilities are expected to be between 200m and 1000m. This work demonstrates that while the surface structures and access points of a Geological Disposal Facility will be located on land, the design could allow the underground facilities to extend offshore if accessed from onshore surface sites. Therefore the National Geological Screening (NGS) exercise will bring together existing information about England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s geology relevant to the long term safety of a geological disposal facility examines geological attributes out to 20 kilometres from the shore which is the extent of UK territorial waters.