My Lords, the House is very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for the amount of time and the expertise that he has brought to bear on this important part of the Bill, as he rightly said. It has been a very long time in gestation. It was recognised two, even three, years ago that the difficulties which the ONR—it was then the nuclear inspectorate—faced in recruiting people to do the very specific task that is required when approving nuclear designs meant that they had to be sui generis so far as the terms of the employment were concerned. They could not be subject to the normal standard Civil Service rules. That is the primary aim of this part of the Bill: namely, to take the ONR out of the standard Civil Service terms of contract for the people it employs. It takes anything up to 20 years before an inspector becomes fully qualified to carry out the extremely expert work that is necessary to approve the designs of nuclear power stations and they are difficult people to come by. One needs to be competitive in this regard. The Select Committee on Science and Technology heard evidence from the former chief inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, who was very clear about this and, indeed, was glad that the issue was at last coming forward in this Bill. He made it clear that he had had to wait rather a long time for this to be done. The Government are very much to be congratulated on including the issue in the Bill.
Amendment 76A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and others, seeks to add the words “and the environment”. As a former board member of the Environment Agency, the noble Lord has had much more experience of this issue than I have. As he rightly said, the regulation of this area is done by both bodies—the inspectorate, now the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and the Environment Agency. Their roles may overlap but they are most emphatically not the same. Nuclear science and technology is essentially the area of expertise of the ONR whereas the Environment Agency has the broader role of looking at the impact of a nuclear plant on the surrounding environment and at atmospheric pollution and so on. These roles are not the same. I will be interested to hear what my noble friend has to say on this. However, if I may say so, to add “and the environment” would confuse the issue. This part of the Bill does not deal with the Environment Agency, which continues to do exactly what it did when the noble Lord was a member of its board. I would be interested to know the reaction of the Environment Agency to the amendment. I think it would say, “It is not for them, it is for us”, meaning the agency. As I say, I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend has to say but it raises a question.
As regards Amendment 78B, we need to pay greater attention to cost-effectiveness. I do not know how many noble Lords have read the very interesting article
by my noble friend Lord Ridley published a few weeks ago in which he talked about the cost pressures of the nuclear inspectorate on the price of a nuclear power station. I do not have the article in front of me but I remember he said that the inspectorate is taking a very, very safe system and insisting that it will be a very, very, very safe system. The question is: what will that cost? I would be interested to know to what extent it is the inspectorate’s role to consider the cost of the additional requirements that it may impose on the design of a plant.
I am absolutely satisfied that the public will expect the inspectorate to have very high standards. Indeed, I spent some years as the honorary president of the Energy Industries Council, which represents some 650 companies in the supply chain for all the energy industries. One of the things I find myself saying over and over again is that if firms are going to sell to the nuclear industry they must get used to nuclear standards which, for the most part, are considerably higher than general engineering standards, and rightly so. However, is it the role of the ONR to look to the question of cost? It has to consider the design of the plant that is put before it. As the noble Lord rightly said, there will be several. It is already looking at the advanced boiling water reactor put forward by Horizon Nuclear Power, which is now owned by Hitachi. It is not yet looking at either CANDU or PRISM—the other two items the noble Lord mentioned—which are still being examined by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the department. However, if a design is put forward for either of those two items, the inspectorate will have to look at those as well. Should it be concerned about the cost? The only cost with which it ought to be concerned is whether we are expecting too high a standard at too great a cost, and whether this is absolutely essential. I suspect there is a temptation to say that anything which makes an installation safe—even it has to be very, very, very safe—should be done even if it costs a lot. I do not agree with that. There must be a role here for looking at the particular cost for the particular requirement that the inspectorate is asked to look at.
As I say, I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend says about that but I think there may be greater merit in this amendment than in Amendment 76A.
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