Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-23
Topic: Energy
Alexander James Jorden Norris (Labour, Centre-left): I enjoyed serving on the Public Bill Committee, and I rise to speak in support of new clauses 1 and 2, and amendment 3 On new clause 1, while I have slightly buried the lead by referencing this earlier, it needs full consideration in this place. Members need to know the judgment of Dr Golshan, who is responsible at the ONR for recreating Euratom in this country: "Our aim, currently, is to have a system in place that enables the UK to fulfil its international obligations by March 2019, which is when we intend to leave Euratom. I have been very clear in the past—I will repeat it here—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.] Members should reflect on that, whatever the political knockabout, because it makes a compelling case for a transition period. Otherwise we will be saying that our nuclear safeguards regime should not be as good as it is today, and I have not heard anyone suggesting that—I do not believe that it would be tolerable A week is a long time in politics, and three months is a lifetime in the Brexit process—perhaps it just feels like that—but over that period we have seen the Government move on this point. Conservative Members asked how we can talk about this hypothetical idea. Well, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy himself said less than two weeks ago that the Government want Euratom to be involved in the implementation period. Now is the time to make good on that In a similar vein, on new clause 2, if I had £1 for every time someone mentioned in Committee that this is a contingency Bill, I would be able to meet the Foreign Secretary’s new financial commitment to the NHS. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), would be a particularly significant donor, having mentioned that many times If this is a contingency Bill, we really should say what it is contingent on, and we should say that in the Bill. Otherwise it is not a contingency Bill, but a Bill that will be law until the Minister decides on the 19.52 train home that it is not law any more. That is not a satisfactory way to legislate Finally, on amendment 3, one issue that has developed since Second Reading is whether we actually have to do any of this. Ministers clearly said on Second Reading that leaving Euratom is legally necessary as part of leaving the EU. We tested that in Committee. I asked two senior lawyers in this area, Jonathan Leech and Rupert Cowan from Prospect Law, whether triggering article 50 necessitates leaving Euratom and if they would have advised the Government to follow this path. To the first question they answered "No" and "Absolutely not" respectively. Jonathan Leech’s answer to the second question was: "The advice would be that you do not have to accept this and it may not be in your interests to do so."––[Official Report, Nuclear Safeguards Public Bill Committee, 31 October 2017; c. 12, Q23.] That is significant, and it is a departure from where we were on Second Reading I represent a leave constituency, and I am always mindful of that when dealing with anything relating to Brexit. I have spent a lot of time knocking on doors and have heard every conceivable argument for remaining or leaving. Funnily enough, I never heard the argument—I suspect no one in this Chamber did—that our membership of Euratom is undesirable, or that there is a desire for a diminution of our nuclear safeguards regime. There is not much of a case for doing this if we do not have to. If we are doing it only because of an arbitrary red line drawn up in Downing Street that we could cross while still delivering Brexit, we are fools to do so. Either way, as amendment 3 states, Ministers ought to come to this place to justify their approach, because once again this is not a decision for the 19.52 train Lots of work has gone into the Bill and I have enjoyed participating in its consideration. I believe that we should all support the Opposition proposals, because they would make the Bill better and then we might not need it at all.