My Lords, I should like to express my opinion and interest in Amendment 76A. It is clear from what it says that the ONR will have responsibility for protecting “persons” against risk of harm from ionising radiation. In fact, pretty well all the risks that one can think of are those that affect persons. Perhaps in slight contrast to my noble friend Lord Caithness, my worry would be that the Environment Agency will have a big role in the approval, design and putting in place of a nuclear power station but it is more likely that the Office for Nuclear Regulation will be the body that is watching what happens day by day as the plant is running. While one can state that someone has responsibility for the environment—which is a nice, all-embracing term that we might think would take care of everything—we need to consider what the threat to the environment might be. We do not expect nuclear power stations to blow up but a whole lot of my sheep were prevented from going to market because of the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl,
and various neighbours of mine were required to put all their sheep through a nuclear scanner. One man actually tried to put his dog through it in order to show the possible dangers from radiation. However, there is the possibility of food supplies being affected. At Fukushima, the issue was marine pollution. I want to be sure that the Office for Nuclear Regulation will be aware of the ongoing operation of plants in order to protect those elements.
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