I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
May I begin by thanking right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House for their constructive contributions during the Bill’s parliamentary stages to date? I thank everyone who has worked on it, including those who served on the Bill Committee, the House authorities, the experts who gave oral evidence at
Committee, my indefatigable officials, who have worked very hard and effectively on the Bill, and the organisations that took the time to provide expert written evidence.
May I also thank and commend the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), for his skill and application in steering the Bill through the House? There is no need for him to sing his own praises; they should be sung loudly and clearly from this Front Bench, and I think that that sentiment is shared by Members on both sides of the House.
May I also join in the commendation of the efforts of the hon. Members for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) and for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who have been thoughtful and insightful, and who helped to improve the Bill during the Committee stage? As my hon. Friend the Minister said, they have applied the principles of constructive opposition to their scrutiny of this very important Bill, and that has helped to bring it to this stage in our proceedings.
Let me briefly remind the House why the Bill is so necessary and firmly in the national interest. The nuclear sector is not only important to the future of energy in this country, but has important applications in research and industry. My Department has been working very closely with the industry to make sure that our shared interests are reflected in arrangements as we leave Euratom. The Bill helps to provide the required certainty and clarity to support our ambitions.
As I said on Second Reading, the Bill ensures that when the United Kingdom is no longer a member of Euratom, we will have in place a legal framework that enables us to establish a domestic nuclear safeguards regime that meets international nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation standards. Nuclear safeguards, as the House now well knows, are the reporting and verification processes that nuclear states use to demonstrate to the international community that civil nuclear material is not diverted into military or weapons programmes. The Bill ensures that the United Kingdom can put in place the regime to enable the Office for Nuclear Regulation to oversee nuclear safeguards following withdrawal from Euratom.
To ensure continued international verification and oversight of our safeguards, we are, as my hon. Friend the Minister made clear throughout our proceedings, in discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency to agree replacement voluntary safeguards agreements that reflect the UK’s withdrawal from Euratom. The Bill gives us the ability to implement those new safeguards and the domestic regime that underpins them.