My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for this amendment to Part 3 of the Bill, and my noble friend Lord Jenkin for his sensible and measured intervention. Noble Lords will recall that we debated the matter of the make-up of the ONR board in Committee. Amendment 78A would introduce a requirement for the ONR board to have at least one member with experience of, or expertise in, nuclear safety management and one member with experience of, or expertise in, employee health and safety representation.
As currently drafted, the legislation allows the Secretary of State to appoint non-executives with skills and experience that best meet the needs of the ONR. This may include experience or expertise in nuclear safety, which I think is what the phrase “nuclear safety management” means, although this is already provided by the chief nuclear inspector, who is an executive member of the board. This experience or expertise may include that of employee health and safety representation. However, that should be a matter for
the Secretary of State to determine over time and, while the matters identified in the amendment are no doubt of great importance, it should be left to the Secretary of State to determine whether that experience would benefit the ONR.
The ONR also requires flexibility to change its skills-mix over time as it develops as an organisation and as the industry it regulates changes. The amendment significantly restricts the flexibility available to the Secretary of State in setting those appointments to only two non-executives. It would be unwise to restrict ONR’s flexibility in this way. However, the legislation does make provision for a non-executive with security expertise. This role is required to ensure that ONR’s security interests are carried out in the context of wider national security policies. It is required to prevent nuclear security matters from being developed in isolation from the wider, national security agenda. The current security non-executive, for instance, does not have specific nuclear security experience.
Turning to employee representation on the board, as I have explained, the intention is to have a skills-based board, not one made up of representatives. Therefore, just as it would be inappropriate for the board to include a representative of the nuclear industry, it is also inappropriate to mandate a representative of workers.
It is important to remind noble Lords that the Health and Safety Executive, which will retain overall policy responsibility for wider health and safety in Great Britain, including health and safety on nuclear sites, will have a trades union representative on its board. Thus the interests of employees will continue to be represented in the ONR’s wider work on health and safety on nuclear sites. In addition to this, Schedule 7 makes provision for the Health and Safety Executive to appoint one of its members to the ONR board, should it wish to do so, and for the arrangement to be reciprocal. This will also provide for employee interests to be represented on the ONR board. I hope that noble Lords find my explanation reassuring and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
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