Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): In speaking to these amendments, I want to draw attention to further events that have taken place between the end of the Committee stage and today’s Report stage. I say "further events" because they are separate from the very welcome statement that the Secretary of State has made on what we may do about negotiating an association with Euratom, which I think has helped our proceedings considerably. Another matter that might have helped proceedings considerably had it taken place a little earlier was our having the impact assessment on the Bill that we have now received As I am sure hon. Members know, impact assessments should, under Cabinet Office rules, ideally be produced before Bills are discussed. To be honest, it is pretty bad that it has taken so long for the impact assessment to arrive, particularly as it arrived after our deliberations in Committee had concluded. I would say that it is particularly bad following an examination of what the impact assessment actually says—it might have helped our proceedings in Committee had we been able to look at it at that time Predominantly, the assessment works on the basis of costing various options relating to what a future inspection regime would look like. Indeed, there are or could be choices, as we have heard, about that inspection regime, which is, after all, at the heart of the Bill. How are we going to replicate in the closest possible detail the inspection arrangements that franked our probity as a nuclear nation in international agreements on non-proliferation and nuclear safeguarding? We have been signed up to those arrangements all these years, but we have hitherto engaged with them through the agency of Euratom, rather than independently. As we know, duties in relation to safeguarding ultimately end in agreements made between nuclear states and the International Atomic Energy Agency The inspection regime we envisage for the future could vary, because the level of inspection—such as the number of inspections and the depth of inspection needed to satisfy the minimum criteria of the IAEA—could be at a lower level than we have been used to under the Euratom regime. We might envisage a bronze standard inspection regime whereby we scrape by in our future relationship with the IAEA, or we could ensure that the inspection regime, overseen by the ONR, will be as good and as thorough as that carried out by Euratom inspectors in the past. As the impact assessment says, that would be marginally more expensive I am pleased that the latter option is strongly advocated in the impact assessment, because it seems to me that we should not seek in future to get by on the lowest level we can get away with. Instead, we should assure ourselves of our own integrity on the matter, and assure others likewise—both the IAEA and the countries with which we will be making bilateral agreements—that we are doing it absolutely properly. That will entail seeking to continue with inspections at the high level laid down in Euratom’s arrangements. That is what amendment 1 is about. It is designed to place in the Bill exactly what the impact assessment states we should do—to ensure that we will go forward at that level The Minister may well say—I hope he does—that we are committed to maintaining that level of inspection regardless of whether it is written in the Bill. But there is a problem with that: when we go independent, will we have the resources to carry out inspections to that level, or will we need an extended period in which we are allowed to scrape by with the minimum, because that is all we will be able to do At the beginning of the Bill Committee we heard from an excellent witness, Dr Golshan, the deputy chief inspector at the ONR. She gave us a fairly stark statement of reality, which members of the Committee have shared this afternoon. Those hon. Members will all recall Dr Golshan indicating clearly that when we leave Euratom, "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.] In amendment 1, we set out an aim for the Bill: that we cleave to the Euratom standards as soon as possible and assure ourselves that we have the resources to do so There is a wider context. What resources will the ONR have to enable it to carry out the substantial new tasks that we set it in this legislation? The ONR is mainly funded through charges to the nuclear industry. That is how it generally recovers the money for its operations, but it also receives some grant funding. Essentially, that funding pays for the nuclear safeguarding work, while the charges on the nuclear industry pay for the ONR’s other functions, which are not the subject of this Bill That distinction is important, because the Government intend to halve the grant to the ONR in the period to 2020. At the outset of the negotiations, we face the prospect of the ONR being able to do less work than it does at the moment. If it is to continue to do as much as it does now, it will probably have to levy substantially higher charges on the industry to make up for the loss of the grant up to 2020. At the same time, if the Bill progresses, we are plainly saying that the ONR will have to undertake a whole lot of new work that it has not budgeted for, that has not been in its terms of reference for a long time and that will clearly require a lot more resource. As we heard in oral evidence to the Committee, that is no mean amount of additional work for the ONR to undertake To enable it to carry out all its functions, Euratom employs about 160 staff, 25%—or 40—of whom focus on UK installations. One can reasonably assume that the ONR would have to add a similar number of people to its complement of staff if it were to take on the work done by Euratom on nuclear safeguarding. The safeguards unit in the ONR comprises eight professional staff. Between now and March 2019, therefore, the ONR will have to find roughly 32 staff—qualified, highly skilled and trained nuclear inspectors—from somewhere to take over that responsibility. That is in addition to all the other things that the ONR will have to put in place, such as IT systems and administration resources, to allow it to take on that role Another excellent witness who contributed to our proceedings in Committee was Sue Ferns, from the union Prospect. She stated that training safeguards inspectors could take up to five years. We are faced with the prospect of needing 32 such people within 18 months. She said, of the role of an inspector: "This is a warranted role; this is not just working in the industry. It is not just about knowledge, but experience and commanding the confidence of the companies and the organisations that you deal with, so there are very specific aspects to that role."––[Official Report, Nuclear Safeguards Public Bill Committee, 31 October 2017; c. 35, Q69.] She also alluded to the relatively small pool in which we are fishing. Not only do we have to fish in the pool, but we have to do so accurately, and we have to attract a good proportion of those people if we are to fill the gap. Consequently, she put a considerable question mark against whether it is possible for the ONR to be ready, as we would like it to be, for the tasks that we are going to give it I accept that a number of people in the nuclear industry have many of the qualities that could make them nuclear inspectors—indeed, as the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) said in Committee, there are many such people in the industry—so it may not be necessary to fully train everybody for five years. Nevertheless, it will be a very steep cliff to climb to get those 32 inspectors, at least, in place for whenever we take over inspections from Euratom. I sincerely hope, as I am sure all Members do, that those matters can be resolved. It may be a question of making sure that the ONR is funded to the extent that it can properly undertake that activity of fishing in a small pool—perhaps, as I mentioned in Committee, with pound notes attached to the end of its fishing line.