I earlier urged the Secretary of State to display a little bit of patience. If the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) did the same, he might hear some of the answers he requires in the remainder of my contribution.
Subject to legal debate, it certainly may have been possible—had the Prime Minister not taken the unnecessary step of specifically including Euratom in her letter to the Commission—to retain the UK’s membership of Euratom. At worst, we could have secured a close association with Euratom that was good enough to allow the continuation of nuclear safeguarding within that amended framework.
The Opposition believe that continued membership of Euratom or a close associated status with it is possible and necessary for the efficient, continued working of a whole raft of procedures relating to the nuclear industry, not just safeguarding. We see this procedure of starting to set up identical but separate processes, instead of a relationship with Euratom, very much as a last resort or a back-up measure. We are frankly disappointed that the Government seem to be putting rather more effort into this than into seeking to maintain an arrangement with a body that does all this perfectly well, although the effort put into this Bill is also questionable. I will come to that in due course.