European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

11: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, at end insert—
“( ) Section 3(2) of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 does not apply to subsection (1), and in subsection (1) the term “EU” does not include the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).”

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will reduce the temperature of the House a little during this debate, but perhaps I will wait an atomic second, or minute, until one or two Members have disappeared.

As I said, we are moving on to what I hope will be a rather less contentious area to debate in Committee. I thank the Government and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Prior, for having had extended discussions with me around this amendment on the subject of Euratom.

I do not stand here as a remainer or a Brexiter. This is an issue that I believe is important for our country. The amendment does not challenge the result of the referendum in any way but, if it were accepted, it would make the job of government easier over the next two years. I put forward the proposition of this amendment on that basis.

I would like the Minister to answer one question, as it seems to me that this amendment may not be necessary at all. On Euratom, the Explanatory Notes to the Bill say:

“The power that is provided by clause 1(1) applies to withdrawal from the EU. This includes the European Atomic Energy Community (‘Euratom’), as the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 sets out that the term ‘EU’ includes (as the context permits or requires) Euratom (section 3(2))”.


Yet Clause 1(2) of this 137-word Bill says:

“This section has effect despite any provision made by or under the European Communities Act 1972 or any other enactment”.


That seems automatically to disapply the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008. The Explanatory Notes therefore seem to contradict the Bill, but they are not the opinion of Parliament and cannot be taken as part of the authority of any Act that comes into force.

My main point is that legally—this is a certainty—Euratom is not part of the European Union; it is a legally separate entity. As I am sure all noble Lords will remember, the referendum question was whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union. It did not in any way mention Euratom and nor was Euratom part of the parliamentary debate that took place during the passage of the referendum Bill. They are separate legal entities. Indeed, when I have been in discussion with some government Ministers, one of their concerns has been that giving notice on Euratom will in some way leave the Article 50 notification open to challenge.

Legal advice that I have taken has made it clear that the Government have no mandate to give notice under the Euratom treaty, nor have they entered into any consultation. Therefore, given that there has been no consultation on leaving the treaty—despite the fact that a number of rights would inevitably be lost through doing so—by giving notice on Euratom they open themselves up to judicial review. Therefore, the Government have an interest in not triggering withdrawal from Euratom, although there is currently a process for doing so.

The processes are very different. Admittedly, Article 106a of the Euratom treaty refers to the Treaty on European Union, but it is a Euratom treaty clause and method. Article 50 mentions only the Treaty on European Union and nothing else. Therefore, there have to be two notification processes, for only one of which is there a clear legal mandate, which is Article 50 to give notice on the European Union.

Why is this important? It is important not because of all those legal issues but for two reasons. One is what Euratom does and the benefit that it brings for this country. The other—in some ways, this is the more important and more political argument—is that over the next two years the Government have a huge amount to do to achieve a successful exit from the European Union and clearly it would be in the national interest for that to be successful rather than the possibility of having no deal on the cliff edge. So why do we risk going down the more perilous route of giving notice on Euratom at the same time? It will mean that we have to undertake another whole area of negotiation on which this country could, if the negotiations under Article 50 are not very successful, be held to ransom.

Euratom is important because of its functions. It effectively operates under the International Atomic Energy Agency; it is the body regulated and approved by the IAEA for nuclear safety and, even more important, nuclear safeguarding. That includes all the areas of non-proliferation treaties and would encompass areas such as Sellafield. It is also concerned with nuclear fuel supply security—clearly, we still have an important nuclear fleet that keeps our lights on. We also have nuclear research coming out of Euratom with a five-year budget of £1.6 billion. The UK is involved in 12 of those projects, the best-known of which are the JET project at Culham in Oxfordshire and the ITER project. I am aware that one of the few industries given a strong mention in the Government’s industrial strategy is the nuclear industry and nuclear research.

Trade in parts and nuclear fuel and the movement of key people all rely on our being a signatory to the Euratom treaty. That will be a problem if we exit from Euratom. The UK does not have a safeguarding authority, as it is known in these agreements. Internationally, at the moment Euratom has some 11 core agreements. There are 50 altogether, including with the United States, Canada and Australia. Without those, because we do not have a safeguarding authority that has been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency, all that trading will stop. We are reliant on nuclear fuel from Australia and we have a number of important domestic nuclear issues with the United States and with France in relation to Hinkley Point C, as well as various other generating stations. We do not have a sufficient amount of those fuels in this country. It is not just a question of nuclear fuel; we need isotopes for radiology in hospitals as well.

It is not just a case of saying that we will get around this somehow. I remind noble Lords that Section 123 of the United States Atomic Energy Act 1954 makes any movement of such materials illegal under US domestic law if we do not have an approved safeguarding authority. I am aware that we can probably put all this in place at some point, although it might be more difficult with the remaining members of the European Union if the negotiations do not go well. We are dependent on French nuclear technology at the moment. Indeed, will we be able to have an agreement with Euratom? I hope that we will, but let us not forget that countries such as Austria try to block most things that go on in Euratom because they are anti-nuclear. We do not know what will happen in the German elections this year. Germany has got rid of its nuclear fleet operationally and is also anti-nuclear. Perhaps with a change of Government it will be difficult to negotiate with Euratom about continuing those relationships.

To sum up, I am not trying in any way to constrain Article 50 or the referendum result, but there is no need to leave Euratom at this stage. If we do not, we can ensure that the lights do not go out some time around September 2019, we can avoid the political risk of Austria and Germany vetoing future relationships with Euratom and we can take our time to make sure that the UK has a fully-fledged and effective safeguarding authority that will be recognised by other realms, including, in particular, Australia, Canada and the United States. But, most of all, I ask again: why go down the route of giving notice on Euratom now when as a country, as a Government and as a Parliament we have a huge amount to negotiate over the next two years? Let us give ourselves a break, think about it longer and do this properly—not threaten our energy industry, our radiology and all the other research that we undertake at the moment. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Baroness. This Government are never caught on the hop.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank everybody for their contribution to this extended meeting of the Science and Technology Committee of the House. I hope that the noble Earl will make sure that we are all on the attendance list next time it meets. Again, I thank the Government and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Prior, who is in his place, for the conversations that we have had.

However, what this debate shows us is that this is a hazardous route to go down. It has risk. In my corporate life, we have risk registers, and I suppose that coming out of Euratom would be somewhere up in that top, right-hand red box. It would be right up there. The board of the company would then say, “How do we mitigate this risk?”. The obvious answer would come from the newest non-executive director who had not yet got into groupthink. He would say, “We actually don’t do it”. For the moment, it might be the strategy and objective that we have as a nation and as a Government, but actually, doing this while we are doing all the rest is not a very good idea at the moment.

Furthermore, I was disappointed with the Minister’s response; I find it very difficult tonight and I want to come back on some of the legal arguments, but I do not agree with them. The two are separate institutions.

More importantly, he mentioned the question on the ballot paper. The question was very clear—it gave me no movement to get out of it, as someone who regrets the decision—because it said, “Shall we leave the European Union or shall we remain in the European Union?” Euratom is not the European Union. I take his point about the institutions, but the public did not vote specifically about the institutions; they voted about getting out of the European Union. Using that argument devalues the direction that that argument goes in.

Lastly, sure, staying in Euratom even for just another two years has its challenges organisationally and in trying to make that work, but the point is that those challenges and risks are absolutely nothing in comparison with coming out altogether.

I will withdraw my amendment and thank everybody for debating this issue. I will engage more with the Minister and other colleagues who put forward amendments —in many ways, they are better than mine. I suspect that, together, we will consider bringing this back on Report, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 11 withdrawn.