My Lords, I will be very brief. I did not speak at Second Reading because I thought that the decision to leave Euratom was tied irrevocably by law to our withdrawal from the European Union. I discovered, while participating at Second Reading of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has mentioned—that it was in fact a political decision. I still do not know who made the decision but I regard it as a very serious and damaging mistake, and that is why I wish to support this group of amendments. We should do everything we can to avoid the disastrous consequences of leaving Euratom.
10.45 pm
Not only does our departure unnecessarily place at risk our ability to ensure nuclear safeguards and the availability of medical radioisotopes—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned—it places in jeopardy the funding and the partnerships essential to remain competitive in nuclear R&D. In doing this, it undermines our ability to deliver the nuclear power needed to meet our carbon targets and makes a nonsense of our energy strategy.
This R&D includes our world-leading work on nuclear fusion in Culham, where we have built and continue to develop JET—the Joint European Torus—in which significant fusion was demonstrated for the first time in the world and where we are developing new spherical tokamaks that offer increased efficiency. It also includes our work as a senior partner on ITER, the world’s largest fusion project, together with our partners, including the EU, the USA, Japan and others. I have been told that the Government will underwrite support for Culham through 2020, but what then? Why put all this unnecessarily at risk? Why not admit that we made a mistake and have changed our mind and ask if we can retain our membership of Euratom?