My Lords, I hope this next amendment will not ensure that we descend into the “end-of-the-pier show”, as we seem to be in danger of doing from time to time. I am very sorry that the Minister has taken the line he has on Amendment 3, and I have no expectations whatsoever that I will get a sympathetic response to Amendment 4.
I want to say a little about why I tabled this amendment. I am genuinely confused as to what the Government want their future relationship with Euratom to be—I simply do not understand. I understand that they want to withdraw from membership, but the Minister talks quite warmly from time to time about having some future relationship. I think “relationship” is probably a safe term to use: we do not talk about “associate membership” or “association”, but a “relationship”. He seems to want that relationship because Euratom provides a comfort blanket in all this. Many in this House are rather desperately looking for some kind of comfort blanket regarding what the situation may be at about 11 pm on 29 March 2019.
The Government’s position is very odd. They are staunchly determined to say that they expect the ONR to be up to meeting the IAEA accreditation standards by that date. However, they are singularly silent about whether that accreditation will actually be achieved in time for us as a country to put in place a series of nuclear co-operation agreements by 29 March 2019. I hope that I can tempt the Minister to say something about that.
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I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for denting the Government’s comfort zone with a few hard facts about staffing issues, which is very practicable. I look forward to finding out more what the IT requirements are as well. In my not inconsiderable experience of government departments, trying to deliver IT systems within any kind of agreed timescale is not that great. I have dealt with NHS IT systems, while the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, dealt with the IT system governing rural payments, so we must be excused our scepticism about the ability of public agencies to deliver IT projects on time.
If, against all expectations, we get the ONR up to a satisfactory standard on time, what do the Government want the relationship with Euratom to be? Do they want a consultancy relationship? Do they want Euratom to lend or second them some staff? Do they want some help in designing the IT system? If the Minister could give us some detailed clarification about the relationship, I think that we would all give him less of a hard time because then we would understand what it is that the Government are trying to achieve in the relationship. He has left me with a clear impression that they do want to have some form of relationship, and that is why I have tabled the amendment.
I think that I am now pretty clear that the Government are not going to continue our membership of Euratom, so the amendment is defective in its drafting. However, its intent is to flush out what the Government want the relationship to be, and in particular what they want the relationship to be in the period running up to March 2019 and any kind of transition or implementation period after that. The Prime Minister seems to accept that in many of these areas there has to be some kind of implementation arrangement, and her tendency is to see the implementation period as one in which the status quo will continue for some time. In this sector, the status quo is Euratom, but this government department wants to be out of our membership of Euratom by March 2019. Given that, a legitimate area of interest for the Committee is to look at is what the relationship with Euratom will be after that date during any kind of transition or implementation period.
I do not want to go in to bat like Ken Barrington or Geoff Boycott on the wording of this amendment, but I do want to know what the Government’s intentions are. On that basis, I beg to move.