My Lords, I thank the Minister and everybody who has taken part in this debate, and I will answer some of their points. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is clearly right that the trigger for setting up the ONR under a new statutory basis was to take it out of the Civil Service, and a large part of the reason behind that was the need to ensure that we have adequate expertise in this field. It is a field that has been allowed to run down; we are probably not without expertise at this point, but they are ageing. Some of them are tempted elsewhere and it is a global market, and therefore it was important for us to ensure that this happened.
Although that may have been the trigger, we have a wider prospect here of a largely comprehensive regulator having its duties set out in a fair amount of detail in this Bill. It would be wrong to say that it is entirely a reflection of the fact that we potentially face a scarcity of resources. Having said that, it is of course important, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and my noble friend Lord Judd have said, that we address that issue in terms of training provision, investment and our ability to compete for global talent. However, there are wider issues involved here as well.
Objection was made to the reference in the first of these amendments to putting “and environment” in the responsibilities of the ONR. I have no desire—and my previous colleagues at the Environment Agency would no doubt shoot me if I had—to change the boundaries of responsibility between the EA and the ONR. It is important that they are both operating in this area and operating to their own expertise. However, it is also true, if you look at nuclear processes, and some other processes as well, that the hazard involved, the potential risk and the need for minimising that risk is not only to the personnel in the immediate area and those who may be visiting in the immediate population, but also to the environment. If my noble friend Lord Judd lives 12 miles from Sellafield, he will know what I am talking about. If anything were to happen at Sellafield, not only would he and the population in his village be at risk but the totality of the environment of West Cumbria would be at risk as well. It is therefore important that, in approving a particular process or way of dealing with that process, the ONR at least takes cognisance of the fact that there is an environmental dimension. The expertise and regulatory authority may rest with the Environment Agency but the ONR will also have to take that into account. I do not find that confusing; it rounds off what the responsibilities are but does not change the regulatory boundaries.
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Amendment 78B refers to the ONA acting in conjunction with the Environment Agency, not taking over the role of the EA. In answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, with my reference to approval of design I was not making an absolute distinction between design and construction, but the role of the EA is different in each case. In terms of construction, all sorts of things come into place in
terms of the effect on the ecology, the flood risk and everything else, but in terms of design, both environmental and safety issues have to be built in by the two bodies acting in conjunction with each other.
To answer the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, it would be interesting if the Government decided that all the designs would be the same, but we are talking about 50 years of new nuclear build. We are already faced with the view of some people that the design at Hinkley Point is out of date. That may be wrong or it may be right, but it would be wrong for us to close our minds and say that we are looking for a single design for all the nuclear power stations in the places that we have designated as potential sites. There are existing designs and there will be more. There will be improvements in the designs that are currently out there and therefore it is important that this is an ongoing issue. We do not want to have a standard design. If I may say so to the noble Earl, it is taking a slightly Stalinist view of these matters to say that we should decide what is fitting now in 2013-14 for the operation of nuclear power stations in the mid-2020s, with a view to that design lasting for the next 25 years. I do not think that that is sensible at all. Therefore, the ONR will have an ongoing responsibility to approve new designs and to look at potential designs, whether or not we proceed with them.
I brought forward the second of these amendments because I regard that as being, in a sense, the central operational responsibility of the ONR. That is why I sought to underline it. As I said, it is also, frankly, the central political role of the ONR in relation to a new station so that it can reassure the kind of people whom the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, referred to and, more widely, address the general concern about moving into a new nuclear era. I think that that objective needs underlining. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, made it plain that my wording is not entirely clear and there have been other objections to it. However, I hope that the Government will take on board the need to ensure that that is seen as almost the number one priority for the ONR and that it will somehow be reflected in the final version of the Bill that the rest of the ONR’s responsibilities relate to the ongoing operation of nuclear installations but that this is the key one. In my view, it needs a greater emphasis than it currently has in the Bill. However, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.