Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness and value for money of the Natural Environment Research Council's Decommissioning, Immobilisation and Management of Nuclear Wastes for Disposal Waste programme.

The research through the Decommissioning, Immobilisation and Management of Nuclear Wastes for Disposal Waste (DIAMOND) programme was funded through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and was completed in March 2013.

The research consortium has subsequently been awarded a further research grant to address the broad area of nuclear waste and decommissioning. This new grant brings together key industry partners and leading academic researchers from 11 of the UKs top research intensive universities and builds upon and consolidates the work completed through the DIAMOND programme. As part of the process to award this new grant, the effectiveness and value-for-money of the DIAMOND programme would have been assessed by experts in the field based on the evidence provided by the applicants.

The specific research outputs from the DIAMOND programme are publicly available on the Research Council Gateway to Research portal – http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/project/E898DD38-1C74-41ED-B298-F9BF53FA6376.