Nuclear Safeguards Bill (First sitting)

Trudy Harrison Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 31st October 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am a member of Unite the union.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

My husband, father and brother work at Sellafield, as well as many other family members.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I am a member of Unite.

Examination of Witness

Dr Mina Golshan gave evidence.

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[The Chair]

Dr Golshan, can I ask you to speak up slightly, because this is a very large room and we are having trouble hearing you. I am getting older—you know how it is.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Thank you for coming here this morning, Dr Golshan. I understand that the ONR currently has the responsibility for safety and security at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. I am keen to understand how the relationship would work with safeguards.

Dr Golshan: May I start by saying that we do not have the responsibility for CNC; we regulate civil nuclear security. We currently have a safeguards function, as set out in the Energy Act 2013, but it is not a regulatory function. The main purpose of that function is to facilitate the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Euratom in the UK, among other things. The Bill will give us the powers, on a par with safety and security, to regulate nuclear safeguards on civil nuclear sites.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Dr Golshan, you have mentioned the sort of headcount you will need for inspectors. What is your current total establishment, and by how much do you think you will need to grow?

Dr Golshan: We have a small project team that helps us deliver this function. I have a project manager and a project lead, and we have interactions with our human resources department and our IT department, which in itself is a small group. We need to grow this project team in the first instance to enable the project to deliver and go forward. All in all, we have five key people in the project team—project manager, delivery lead, policy lead, myself and a subject matter expert—and the team overall has links with the HR department and so on, as I described. We will need to grow this project team to help us deliver when we come to 29 March 2019, and we are in the process of doing so.

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[Dr Whitehead]

And those discussions, I understand, are proceeding at the moment but have by no means reached any conclusion. Are you confident that in terms of replicating the UK’s safeguarding function, the basic structure you have outlined to us this morning that needs to be in place will be able to fulfil its functions and, in particular, assure and satisfy the IAEA that it can safely proceed with new treaty arrangements with the UK?

Dr Golshan: Yes is the short answer. We do not have to have a regime equivalent to Euratom in order to be able to proceed with concluding those agreements and negotiations, so what the IAEA needs the UK to have in place is a domestic safeguards regime that meets its international obligations under the non-proliferation treaty and others. So although there are risks here for us to complete the work we are doing, I think it is a much more achievable objective for us to aim for, rather than replicating Euratom in the first instance. I should again emphasise that having a regime that is equivalent to Euratom is not a prerequisite to complete those agreements and negotiations.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Assuming that the Bill goes ahead as written, what will be possible on day one and what will not be possible, and how will that impact on our 17 nuclear sites? I ask with specific regard to my constituency of Copeland, which has Sellafield, the low level waste repository and the national nuclear laboratory.

Dr Golshan: The Bill is an enabling Bill. It gives us the broad powers in parallel with nuclear safety and security. It gives the Secretary of State the powers to make nuclear safeguards regulations. That is the secondary legislation that I referred to. In relation to what is possible at our nuclear sites—

[Trudy Harrison]

Q In terms of moving fissile material, exchange of knowledge and those kinds of practical aspects of work that need to happen?

Dr Golshan: There is a nuclear co-operation agreement and there are a number of states that, as a matter of policy, will not engage with a third country that does not have a safeguards regime in place. So our aim, and the Government’s aim, is to establish a nuclear co-operation agreement with these states as a matter of priority. We are advising the Government and providing subject matter expertise. As to what will be possible on nuclear sites, we will continue to provide reports to the IAEA; that is a fundamental aspect of what a safeguards regime needs to deliver. As I said, the safeguards information management system that we will be putting in place is fundamental to achieve that.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q I just wonder about the benefits of the transition period, once we have gone through this stage, to enable those bilateral agreements—the 123 agreement and others—with the States and the many other countries outwith the European Union that we work with daily. How necessary is that and how long should it be?

Dr Golshan: I cannot comment on how long it should be; I think that depends on the scope of the negotiations and what can be achieved within the timescales we have left. From our perspective, a transitional arrangement will be extremely helpful. It will enable us to have parallel working arrangements in place with Euratom to conclude the discussions that we need to have with it, first, to understand what activities it currently undertakes on nuclear sites, but also the Secretary of State has mentioned that there should not be any weakening of standards in the UK following our departure from Euratom. The transitional period, as I see it, will seek to achieve that.

[Dan Carden]

Q The Bill does not cover other aspects of the UK’s relationship with Euratom, such as research funding, and if you were making a plea to the Minister here today, or—

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[The Chair]

That will be a matter for another day. I tend to be quite strict with the Committee because it is a topic that can spread its wings in a whole variety of different areas. We are tasked by the House of Commons simply with discussing the terms and the wording of the Bill, rather than the wider consequences or circumstances.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q With regard to the ownership of fissile material, I understand that Euratom actually owns the plutonium at Sellafield. Therefore is it not in the European Union’s interests to be co-operative, because would it really want that material sent back to it?

Rupert Cowan: Not necessarily.

Jonathan Leech: There is no question of that material being sent back.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Because it would be practically impossible to do so?

Jonathan Leech: It is the UK’s responsibility.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Who owns it?

Jonathan Leech: Ownership will transfer to the UK on exit from Euratom.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q But who currently owns the material?

Jonathan Leech: I think technically that material belongs to Euratom at the moment.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q That is certainly my understanding: that Euratom owns all of the fissile material in the UK in the civil nuclear industry.

Rupert Cowan: That is the effect of the treaty.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Rupert, you mentioned interruptions to the industry. Could you be more specific? What interruptions? What needs to happen to avoid those interruptions? What are the consequences?

Rupert Cowan: It is difficult to answer that question and remain entirely within the Bill, so I expect that James Gray will jump at me.

[The Chair]

You may digress very slightly, but don’t get too carried away.

Rupert Cowan: Essentially, the safeguards regime is the first step. The second step is the replacement of the existing nuclear co-operation agreements with the jurisdictions that have them with us, notably the European Union, the United States, Korea and Japan. If Euratom is no longer included in our safeguards regime, each of those agreements must be renegotiated, and each of them will require a substantial resource to achieve that. For example, America requires a section 123 agreement under the US Atomic Energy Act. If there are any members that—for their own reasons—do not immediately wish to agree, they can rely on the fact that the safeguards are different from the Euratom safeguards, and say, “We are not able to agree a nuclear co-operation agreement with you yet,” or “in the future,” depending on what is driving them.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q So I understand, but it is a first point of getting this Bill through.

Rupert Cowan: Absolutely.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Which will then give us the opportunity to progress those bilateral agreements.

Rupert Cowan: Correct, and nothing that we are saying suggests that this Bill should not go forward, save for the amendment we suggested, which would make those negotiations more straightforward.

[Dr Whitehead]

Q You mentioned that the Bill is first a contingency Bill and secondly an enabling Bill, and that the main work will be putting in place secondary legislation to get us to a basic safeguarding regime that by March 2019 will operate pretty much as Euratom does at the moment. How realistic do you think that process is, in respect not of the Bill but of what needs to be done to get to that position, on the basis of the Bill?

Jonathan Leech: May I first go back to the point about the Bill being a contingency? It is very important that the Bill is no sense a contingency.

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[The Chair]

We will discuss that in this room when we are considering subsequent Bills, no doubt.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q I am hearing that the legislation should be descriptive of Euratom—almost a cut-and-paste job. That differs from the way that ONR currently deals with safety and security, which is outcome-based. While ONR has responsibility for safety and regulates for security, do you see benefits in ONR also having responsibility for safeguarding? Could there be cost or knowledge and skills benefits in ONR having all three strands of the nuclear industry in one building and within one organisation?

Tom Greatrex: The question is probably better addressed to the ONR, but I think the skillsets that would give the ability to move between those different things may be limited to some extent. However, as you heard earlier, it is not unusual for domestic regulators to have responsibilities for safeguarding inspection. That happens in a number of different countries already, but Euratom effectively does that on our behalf. I do not think that in itself is particularly an issue. It is about the process of being able to move from the current situation to the new one.

In the fullness of time, if we get all these arrangements in place and there is not an interruption, and all those concerns are addressed, I do not think there is anything to suggest that the ONR would not be fully capable of doing this alongside the other things it is currently required to do. I am not sure to what extent there would be the economies of scale benefits that you suggest, because the skills involved in safeguarding inspections are quite different from assessing new reactor designs or the routine safety inspections that happen at sites around the country, such as Sellafield and others.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q I am going to come back to the waste issue. I understand that we have waste from the United States and also, I think, from Tokaimura in Japan at Sellafield. What would happen to that waste—waste owned by either other countries or Euratom—if we do not get this in place?

Rupert Cowan: They rub their hands with glee and say, “You keep it; your problem.”

[Trudy Harrison]

But it already is our problem.

Rupert Cowan: No, because it goes back to Japan when it has been re-cleaned. They will just say it is our problem, and that they cannot take it because they are not allowed to. You should not get the impression from what we are saying that we are in any way opposed to the Bill. It is probably correct that, ultimately, ONR being responsible for safeguarding is a positive outcome. It is the disruption that frightens us. That disruption is not a scare story, it is a very real possibility in terms of electricity generation and the ownership, safeguarding and storage of spent fuels, which would be going back to their home base—or not, depending on the particular arrangement; it is all going to stop if we do not get this organised. That is the danger.

I am not saying that we will not have resolved it in 10 years’ time, but the next two or three years look pretty bleak. That is the worry.

Jonathan Leech: We have to keep in mind that international nuclear trade depends upon international acceptability; it is very much a compliance-driven culture. It is not the case that there is a fall-back that might involve a higher tariff or whatever; it would simply be unlawful, so it would simply stop until such time as we have resolved the impasse.

[The Chair]

We are testing the edges of the Bill. Maybe because I want to say “sir”, I call Sir Robert Syms.