My Lords, Amendment 55F from the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, provides me with an opportunity to outline what the Government are already doing to better co-ordinate and develop research and development in nuclear technology.
The Government welcomed the Science and Technology Committee’s excellent 2011 report on Nuclear Research and Development Capabilities in the UK, and in responding to it we committed to undertake a programme of work designed in the simplest terms to assess where the UK was in terms of nuclear R&D, where we and the industry believe the sector could be by 2050, and how to get there. The work under this programme completed around the beginning of this year and went on to form the basis for the development of the nuclear industrial strategy. The strategy was published alongside the outputs from our R&D work in March.
This package of work highlights how essential research and development will remain in ensuring that nuclear power can play its role in the current and future energy mix while allowing us to continue to deal safely and securely with the legacy of our nuclear past. The strategy was clear that the co-ordination and development of nuclear R&D needs to be taken forward in collaboration between industry, academia and public bodies. In doing so, we aim to maximise the use of public and private resources and provide a level of harmonisation between industry’s commercial aspirations and maintaining energy options for the UK’s future growth. As such, we believe that it is unnecessary and even counterproductive to put a legislative requirement on the Government part of this larger collaboration when we have already committed to moving forward together. We recognise that while R&D on advanced fission technologies and alternative fuel cycles is important, it is just part of the wider whole that includes essential work on decommissioning and long-term waste management.
On the management of the UK’s plutonium stockpile, all the options being considered involve the spending of public money, and a key driver will be ensuring best value for taxpayers. Following a public consultation on long-term plutonium management, the Government have concluded that for nuclear security reasons the preferred policy for managing the vast majority of UK civil separated plutonium is reuse, and that plutonium should be converted to mixed oxide fuel for use in civil nuclear reactors. The Government’s expectation is that at current uranium prices the value of the fuel generated will be significantly less than the cost of its manufacture; in other words, for the foreseeable future, the manufacture of MOX is primarily a route for consuming plutonium stocks rather than a commercial operation in its own right. However, the Government remain open to any alternative proposals that offer better value to the taxpayer, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority continues to work on an assessment of both the CANDU and PRISM technologies, the use of either of which would involve the use of advanced reactors and new fuel forms.
I turn now to the reporting requirement to Parliament that is set out in the amendment. The nuclear industrial strategy sets out our intention to create a co-ordination structure across the UK nuclear R&D landscape, including the formation of the Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board with its own expert secretariat. We envisage that this body will be in place by the end of the year. Part of its remit will be to provide publicly
available progress reports about the strategy and the pathways in the road map, and comment on any divergence from these. This will provide an independent report that will be available to Ministers, the public and Parliament, which will be wider ranging and more detailed than what is proposed in the amendment.
I shall touch on a couple of points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, on the remit of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. We believe that it plays an essential role in ensuring that the historic civil nuclear legacy sites are decommissioned safely, securely, cost-effectively and in ways that protect the environment. As we set out in the Government response to the committee’s report, we would have serious concerns about changing the authority’s remit or reallocating essential resources from it because we do not want to dilute its ability to focus on this critical mission. It is also worth noting that over the past five years, the NDA estate has itself contributed more than £544 million to R&D activities, with an annual spend of between 3% and 5% of its overall budget.
The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, both asked why we are not using fast breeder reactors in the UK, and I think that the noble Viscount said that we had already done so. Dounreay used fast breeder reactors, but we found them to be commercially not viable. It was generating less than 50% at the time and was also a prototype, so there was some reasoning behind that decision.
I hope that I am able to reassure the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, that the Government are taking the issue of nuclear research and development very seriously and are working in partnership with experts from a variety of sectors. On that basis, I hope that the noble Viscount will withdraw his amendment.