My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 2, 12 and 16, which are in my name in this group. We had a good warm-up late last night for this first day in Committee on this Bill, with the Minister’s colleague doing what I thought was a rather good imitation of Geoffrey Boycott: occupying the crease but not showing much flair in his run gathering. In that debate on withdrawal from Euratom that we had in Committee on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, it was clear that the mood of the House was that this was a rash and ill-considered action by the Government, and that the Government would do well to reconsider their position on withdrawing from Euratom in the interests of the future of the nuclear industry in
the UK. I have little doubt that we will return to this issue during our later consideration of the withdrawal Bill and I do not intend to traverse that ground again today, although I still consider that cancelling the withdrawal from Euratom membership would be the best course of action in the public interest.
Today, I want to focus on two issues that continue to cause concern in the industry and among many of us in this House: first, whether the Government have a credible plan for putting in place an internationally acceptable nuclear safeguarding regime in the UK in time for our departure from Euratom; and, secondly, whether this can be done by EU exit day on 29 March 2019. These two issues are inextricably linked in my view, and that is why I have grouped my Amendments 2, 12 and 16 with the related amendments in this first group. I have to say to the Minister that how the Government respond to amendments on these concerns in this Bill will, I suspect, determine how the House deals with the Euratom issue in the withdrawal Bill. I assure the Minister that that is not a threat but a piece of friendly advice.
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I now turn to my Amendments 2 and 16, which are concerned with a review of the withdrawal from Euratom. These amendments require the Secretary of State, in consultation with other relevant interests, to produce by the end of 2018 a report to both Houses of Parliament on discussions with Euratom on the scope and conditions for a form of association with Euratom short of full membership that minimises change to the present nuclear safeguards. This report must cover the issues in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause and the legislative changes required to affect such a new partnership or association. That is, I suggest, consistent with the report of 29 January, Brexit: Energy Security, by this House’s EU Committee and its recommendations on Euratom. I wonder whether the Minister has seen that report, especially chapter 9 on Euratom.
Amendment 16 simply prevents the commencement of Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill until this report has been laid before the Houses of Parliament and ensures that the regulations commencing Clauses 1 and 2 are subject to the affirmative procedure. This amendment has been provoked by the Government’s claims that they want to get “as close as possible” to the current Euratom regime on nuclear safeguarding but without any public evidence that they have effective measures for doing so.
The Government’s lack of transparency on this issue, like so much of their behaviour on Brexit, simply fosters a total lack of trust in ministerial assurances about good progress. Most of us have had enough of warm but vague assurances of good progress by government Ministers without any real detail or realistic timetables for actions to be completed. By “us”, I do not mean just parliamentarians but in this case the UK nuclear industry and the many talented people working in it.
I am not wedded to the precise wording of Amendment 2 and 16 or to the timetable involved. I am more than happy to sit down with colleagues on other Benches and with the Government to agree an alternative amendment or series of amendments. What
I am not prepared to do is to be fobbed off with another dose of ministerial assurances on progress and that it will all be all right on the night. I want to see an amendment in this territory on the face of the Bill on Report to ensure effective action by the Government and a transparent system of regular information on progress and to minimise risk to the UK’s nuclear industry. Parliament needs to be able to assure itself that the Executive are taking effective action in an area where they instigated the change. Nobody other than the Government, this Government, required us to leave Euratom at the time of the Article 50 invocation Bill.
I now turn to Amendment 12 on a transition period. This is motivated by several concerns. The first, and most important, is the clear recognition by the ONR that a new UK nuclear safeguarding regime of the same standard as Euratom cannot be achieved by exit day on 29 March 2019. More worrying for me is the lack of any realistic public operational plan with milestones that guarantees that by exit day we will have a regime that has been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency and a set of nuclear co-operation agreements underpinned by that approval with countries such as the US, Japan, Canada and Australia. This, as the industry has made crystal clear, is an absolute prerequisite for the international movement of nuclear material. The absence of a transparent and credible operational plan for achieving these objectives makes many of us wonder whether the Government actually have such a plan and worry that they are taking terrible risks with the future of this important UK industry. That is why I believe we have to guarantee on the face of the Bill a transition period of no less than two years, a timescale seemingly approved by the Prime Minister for other areas affected by Brexit post-exit day.
What I cannot understand is why, when the Government seem to accept the principle of a transition or implementation period of around two years post Brexit in other areas, they rejected an amendment on Report in the Commons that did just that for the nuclear industry. My Amendment 12 is based on the Commons amendment, tweaked a bit by the Public Bill Office, and I thank it for all its help in drafting these amendments. I hope the amendment will command support across the House and commend itself to the Government. It will certainly commend itself to the industry, which is clearly very worried that without such a guaranteed transition period it will be left on exit day in an international no man’s land, outside Euratom but not within an internationally recognised safeguarding regime that would enable nuclear co-operation agreements to be concluded.
I hope we will not have the Minister saying that this issue can be left to the wider discussions on Brexit transition/implementation arrangements. We need to give our nuclear industry the certainty in the Bill that there will be a parliamentary approved transition as quickly as possible. After all, Euratom is governed by a separate treaty from membership of the EU, so why should there not be bespoke transition arrangements for withdrawal from Euratom? Again, I am more than happy to be flexible and to improve the wording of the
amendment in discussion with colleagues in the House and with the Government, but the Bill should not leave this House without a clear provision for a transition period of about two years.
I say again that I support the intentions of the other amendments in this group and would like to work with colleagues on a combined set of amendments for Report. I shall listen carefully to what the Minister says but, after the performance of his ministerial colleague last night on this issue, I have to say I do not have very high expectations of a positive response. But who knows? Perhaps, after sleeping on it, the Government will have a Pauline conversion. After all, the Minister’s boss, Greg Clark, said in a profile in this week’s The House magazine:
“We absolutely owe it to businesses large and small to make sure that we are reflecting their needs”.