argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): The proposed new clauses and amendments appear in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), who is the shadow Secretary of State, and for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and others First and foremost, I want to set down a marker on new clause 2, because it represents the dividing line between us and the Government on membership, associate or otherwise, of Euratom. This purpose clause makes explicit that this is a contingency Bill. In other words, it is being enacted to deal with circumstances that may never arise—namely, that we as a country have no future association or membership with Euratom that would enable us to continue to reap the benefits of association or membership in a way that I think is almost universally agreed I think that it is agreed—the Minister has stated as much during the passage of this Bill—that Euratom has served well our purposes as a nuclear nation over the past 40 years, and nuclear safeguarding has worked very well in inspecting and representing our obligations to international agencies such as the International Atomic Energy Authority It is clear that our interests as a country would be best served by continuing our membership of Euratom, which was founded by a different treaty from that which brought about the EU. Indeed, during evidence to the Public Bill Committee, we heard strong arguments along those lines from eminent lawyers who had been called as witnesses. However, we appear to be in the position of assuming that our future membership of Euratom is not possible, because essentially the Prime Minister, as a matter of choice, included exit from Euratom in her letter to the Commission informing it that we were invoking article 50.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid that it is not as simple as that. A considerable body of legal opinion states that, because Euratom was founded by a treaty other than the treaty of Rome—it was, in fact, founded before the EU came together—it can and should be dealt with separately. Although arrangements relating to association with and membership of various EU bodies have changed over time as a result of changes in EU regulations, that has not been the case with Euratom. The articles relating to associate membership and arrangements are identical to those that were in place when Euratom was founded. There is no case to answer as far as separate arrangements for Euratom are concerned.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a strong case for associate membership. He will recall a Westminster Hall debate that I held only last year, during which there was broad consensus on the issue, including among Conservative Members. I think that the Minister was the only Member who did not agree. The only reasons the Government have given relate to the legal position and the European Court of Justice. If Conservative Members were not whipped, they would understand the logic of the very sensible new clause.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for making that strong point. I recall that even the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) suggested during that debate that associate membership of Euratom could be effective in continuing those arrangements, which have served us so well over many years.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady makes the case for our new clause. If the Government are going about their business in a sensible and coherent way—I note the Secretary of State’s statement on 11 January on how the Government intend to go about conducting relationships with Euratom—it would be a good idea to place that procedure into the Bill, so that we can be clear about what we are about, what we want to achieve and how we will do so. After all, it has been stated that this is a contingency Bill. We want to know what it is a contingency against and therefore how it should be framed in terms of what we should be doing in contemplating whether to bring it into operation. If we had either membership of Euratom or an associate form of membership, which might be fairly similar to that enjoyed currently by Ukraine but with a number of additional factors, this Bill would not be needed. The arrangements with Euratom would continue to be in place, rendering the Bill superfluous. We need to be clear about what we are debating.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): 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.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): 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.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): 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.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): 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.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): I repeat my suggestion that, because the Bill is about process as much as content, it is important that it is guided by the sort of considerations we want to take place in order to achieve, as we are all agreed, the best outcome—[Interruption.] Indeed, yes, the best outcome. We must make sure that the negotiations not only proceed with the best outcome in mind, but cover the fact that it may be the case—again, this is out of our control—that if we stick to a position, with the provisions of the Bill, in which everything essentially stops in March 2019, that would be just catastrophic for our nuclear industry and our international nuclear safeguarding obligations. We must get this right, and we must have continuity of arrangements inside or outside Euratom. It is in those circumstances that a transition period is suggested The arrangements for the founding of Euratom and its articles suggest that a period of transition for negotiating our way out of Euratom may not be identical to the period for the arrangements for negotiating our way out of the EU as a whole. It is quite possible to conceive the circumstances in which we do not have a transition period beyond March 2019 for negotiating our general withdrawal from the EU, but we do have a transition period for negotiating our way out of Euratom. It is at the least strongly arguable that that may be the case in the future, and it is another reason why such a provision should be in the Bill.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Rachel Jane Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): I know that the hon. Lady cares hugely about this issue, because it matters a great deal for her constituency. She and I have been in meetings with the Office for Nuclear Regulation, in which it has said very clearly that it will not be able to meet Euratom standards for safety inspections by March 2019. Indeed, even to meet IAEA standards will be very challenging. Does she not agree that new clause 1 would provide certainty, rather than the other way around, because it would ensure that in March 2019 we were in a transition period in which we could still rely on Euratom to perform the inspections that are so crucial in her constituency?
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alexander James Jorden Norris (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady and I were both in the evidence-gathering sitting of the Bill Committee, in which Dr Golshan said that "we will not be able to replicate Euratom standards on day one."––[Official Report, Nuclear Safeguards Public Bill Committee, 31 October 2017; c. 7, Q9.] Is this perhaps a matter of fact, rather than a question of confidence in Britain? In taking this course of action without the safeguard that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) has proposed, we will leave ourselves without the coverage that we need.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I want to speak briefly in support of new clause 1. We have debated whether there will be negotiations during the transition period, but I hope that the Minister will respond to this question when he winds up: does he intend to negotiate associate membership of Euratom? We are asking for associate membership, but we have been given no clear idea of whether he intends to seek such membership. We all want the safeguards to be in place from day one. Negotiating over Euratom standards is not in our gift, but we now have in place the highest standards in the world and co-operation with other world leaders.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I often agreed with the hon. Gentleman in Committee, but I think that he is completely wrong on that point. There is such a thing as associate membership—of Euratom, and of the European Union—and there are different levels of membership.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): The Government say that we need a transitional period for EU withdrawal, and it is obvious to me that we also need one for Euratom. The Government have said that we need to leave Euratom at the same time as we leave the European Union, but I stress again—I hope that the Minister will clarify the position—that nobody other than the Government has seen the legal advice that tells us that we need to exit Euratom. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) was absolutely right to say that there is universal support for the idea of our having associate membership. I have not met anyone who works in the industry who says that we should move away from Euratom. If we do, they—the workers; Prospect, the union; many of the experts who gave evidence to us; and the Nuclear Industry Association, which is the umbrella body—feel that we should have associate membership. The new clause therefore speaks on behalf of the industry in the first instance, and we as legislators should listen to what the industry is saying; we should not listen to the Government’s ideological grounds. The only reason why the Government want to leave Euratom is that they do not want to be under the European Court of Justice—that is the crux of it.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): 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.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): 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.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Rachel Jane Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): Like other hon. Members, my hon. Friend has a close constituency interest in this issue. Ukraine has associate membership for the research and development programme. One thing my hon. Friend and I are particularly interested in is whether we are seeking to have what Ukraine has: associate membership specifically for research and development.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I think the hon. Gentleman is agreeing with me, but we do not know our position or what our starting point is I would like to hear from the Minister—he will have enough time—that the British Government, on behalf of the nuclear industry, are looking for certainty. To say that they are looking for something as close as associate membership is not good enough. Are we looking for a specific British agreement with the rest of Euratom that gives us the same certainty as we have now? If so, we should support the new clause, because it strengthens the hand of the Government, rather than weakens it We should look at the comparison with the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and phase 1, at the 11th hour waiting for the Irish to reach some sort of agreement. We cannot do that with Euratom and nuclear, because of its nature. Let us be absolutely firm. We are all pulling in the same direction. We want the best for the British nuclear industry. The nuclear industry wants an associate membership, so let us fight for it.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): Is the hon. Gentleman honestly telling the House that the British public do not want experts from other countries to move freely in the nuclear industry? We are talking about not just nuclear installations but research centres in this country that need international co-operation.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Rachel Jane Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware of this, but I clarify to the House that IAEA standards are not as high as Euratom’s. The Office for Nuclear Regulation has said that it will not be able to meet Euratom’s standards on day one of our exit from the European Union, so that would mean a dilution of the standards that we have today. Does the hon. Gentleman understand and acknowledge that?
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to rise to speak in favour of new clause 1. As far as I could follow the argument of the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) at the end there, he was saying that it would create instability to have an increased transition period for a treaty that has served the UK well for 40 years and that we want to replicate in as much detail as possible in the future arrangements. That is Alice in Wonderland logic and not the kind of rigour we ought to bring to this incredibly serious debate This fellow Andrew Duff, a former Liberal Democrat MEP, has been mentioned several times in the Chamber. It is, to my mind, the first time a former Liberal Democrat MEP has been taken as a great authority on any matter by Conservative Members, and possibly by his own party as well. I want to briefly and gently warn Conservative Members on the wisdom of taking former leaders’ pronouncements as general facts. For obvious reasons, I do not seek to dwell on my own party’s predicament on the matter, or that of the Liberal Democrats, given the recent well-publicised difficulties of their former leader in matters of faith. Are we to agree, however, with every pronouncement from Lord Hague, a former leader of the Conservative party, on issues on which he remains an expert? Are we to agree without question that Brexit will undoubtedly diminish Britain’s influence on the world stage, as he has made clear? No, of course we are not, so can we please put that argument to one side and move on to the substance of the debate.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): I did try I would never accuse the Minister of complacency—he is not a complacent man—and I know that as Energy Minister he is giving much time to this matter, but although I do not think there is complacency from Ministers themselves, I am profoundly worried about the capacity in the system to deliver the new arrangements by the time set out. I agree with my neighbour, the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), on so much and we have worked together, but the idea that it is okay to be there or thereabouts in March 2019, at the time of transfer, is, I am afraid, bunkum. A level of certainty has to be written into our nuclear safeguarding regulatory arrangements Many Labour Members want our membership of Euratom to continue, howsoever it might be delivered in the future. The alternative at the moment is to rely on a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that is bursting at the seams with all the things it has to deliver on Britain’s exit from the EU. I had a conversation a few months ago with someone whom I knew from my time as an adviser and who remains in the system. What he had to say about the number of staff looking at the Euratom issue in particular was frightening. There is not remotely the level of assurance that the House ought to expect if it is to give its blessing to the Government and not seek to write into the Bill a commitment to a transition period, which is eminently sensible while we try to work out whether we can stay for good Some Members have said that there is no certainty because a negotiation is in progress, but the new clause gives a degree of strength to Ministers, enabling them to say, "Parliament has willed that there needs to be a transition arrangement. Our Act—which is, of course, a contingency Act—makes clear that there must be contingency arrangements, and that is what we require from these negotiations."
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady may be confused, but we are not, and the industry is not. The industry is strongly urging the Government—as they will know, if they are listening—and all Members to get behind a transition period while we examine the position, to decide whether we can reverse the wrongheaded decision to leave Euratom that was made—in all probability, unnecessarily—when article 50 was served. The alternative is to face a dire cliff edge that could do deep damage to civil nuclear production throughout the United Kingdom. I understand that the Minister is due to visit Sellafield for the first time later this week—