Radioactive Waste
Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and John Hayes(11 years ago)
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Ms Ritchie
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what assessment he has made of the selection of a site for the storage of radioactive waste from existing and former nuclear sites; and if he will make a statement.
[Official Report, 26 March 2013, Vol. 560, c. 1063W.]
Letter of correction from John Hayes:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) on 26 March 2013.
The full answer given was as follows:
Mr Hayes
The UK's higher activity radioactive waste is currently held in safe and secure storage facilities at various nuclear sites around the country. Government set out its approach to implementing a geological disposal facility (GDF) to dispose of the UK's higher activity radioactive waste in the 2008 White Paper “Managing Radioactive Waste Safely: A Framework for Implementing Geological Disposal”.
The Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) process is based on the principles of voluntarism and partnership. It is a staged process, one in which potential host communities 'decide to participate' (without commitment) in site identification and assessment for a potential GDF. To date, no sites have been selected. The Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) programme is a very long-term one, and Government remains confident that a suitable site for a GDF will be found.
The current invitation remains open for volunteer communities to express an interest, without commitment, in the MRWS process. At the same time, Government has been working to learn the lessons of the recent experience gained in west Cumbria—as the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change affirmed in his written ministerial statement earlier today, will launch in May a public call for evidence on the site selection process of the MRWS programme. The evidence provided in response to this call will inform a public consultation later this year on how this process might be improved.
With regards to the recent experience in west Cumbria, both Copeland and Allerdale borough councils decided to proceed to site identification and assessment, however, Cumbria county council did not. Since Government had given a specific commitment in west Cumbria that there should be agreement at both borough and county level before progressing to the next stage, this decision brought the existing site selection process to an end in west Cumbria.
The correct answer should have been:
Phonographic Performance Ltd
Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and John Hayes(12 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
It is delightful, Mr Bayley, to speak in successive debates in this Chamber under your benevolent stewardship. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) on securing this debate and on her speech, and in the short time available I will do my best to deal with some of the points she has raised.
I hope that hon. Members will join me in recognising the success of the 45,000 performers and almost 5,000 record companies that are members of Phonographic Performance Ltd. They make a significant contribution to the cultural life and economic wealth of our country. The industry of which they are part—the creative industries—acts as an important ornament to all that we are and all that we do. It is one of the big growth areas in our economy and has the support of the Government. We are working with the creative industries to develop ways in which they can grow still further. Our country is home to the largest national creative sector in Europe, and the creative industries account for 5.6% of gross value added in the UK, and provide around 2 million jobs. They are not merely ornamental but make a difference to the health and well-being of our economy and of communities up and down Britain.
Intellectual property and the copyright system lie at the heart of our creative industries. Many of those industries are small firms—the hon. Lady drew our attention to that once again in her speech. PPL tells us that the vast majority of its members are small and medium-sized enterprises. As she has said, those industries rely on copyright to survive, and it provides them with a legal framework to sustain and protect creative value. Although we are committed to minimising unnecessary burdens on small businesses, we also want to maintain a fair and balanced copyright system in which artists can gain fair rewards for creative works, and licensees can expect access to content via a licensing system that is fair, transparent, and reasonable.
As the hon. Lady has said, PPL plays an important part in that system. Like all collecting societies, it has a valuable role in managing and clearing rights. Its collective licensing activities mean that users do not have to approach every single rights holder for permission, which helps to reduce transaction costs. As a collecting society, PPL is a private commercial organisation that manages the rights of its members. The collecting society functions of PPL and all other collecting societies are not specifically regulated by the Government. PPL acts on the basis of mandates given to it by its members, which it uses to license those rights—the exclusive rights that the international and domestic legal framework gives to copyright owners—for those who want them.
The licensing system in the UK is relatively unregulated compared with other jurisdictions. Our system expects the licensor and the licensee—or their representative body or trade association—to negotiate freely and agree a market rate for the licence. If negotiations break down, the licensee or their representative can refer the matter to the Copyright Tribunal. The collecting society has no corresponding right. That is intended to act as a check on the power of what is effectively a monopoly supplier when dealing with, for example, the kind of small businesses championed by the hon. Lady.
As the hon. Lady will know, Professor Hargreaves has reviewed these matters. In his work, he noted that collecting societies in the UK fulfil a valuable role in licensing markets, but that they are also effectively unregulated natural monopolies. Licensees do not generally enjoy the protections that are available to consumers when dealing with broadly comparable organisations such as utility companies. Professor Hargreaves recommended that collecting societies should be required by law to adopt codes of practice approved by the Intellectual Property Office and UK competition authorities to ensure that they operate in a way that is consistent with the further development of efficient, open markets.
Following that inquiry and review, the Government are considering their response to Hargreaves’s recommendations, which will be made public in the near future. The hon. Lady’s Adjournment debate could not be timelier, because the Government are open-minded about this issue, mindful of the recommendations and anxious to move forward. The constraints within which we work are, of course, international and European obligations. The hon. Lady will be familiar with those, too. None the less, I think that further progress can be made, and I will say a few words about that in the time available to me.
Ms Ritchie
I thank the Minister for his answer and his speech so far. He has referred to the Government response to the investigation and report by Professor Hargreaves. Can he provide an estimated timetable for the Government response? Is it likely to be produced in the next month, the next two to three months or the next six months?
Mr Hayes
I shall deal with that specific question before I finish speaking. No doubt inspiration will wing its way to me to inform my response—the hon. Lady knows what I mean by that. She has made it clear that there are areas in which we can make improvements, notwithstanding the constraints to which I have referred. Ah! Inspiration may already have reached me, but I want—not tantalisingly, but temptingly—to delay what I say about that for a few moments.