I thank both noble Lords for their interventions. I will make a little progress because I think I will be able to make them both a little happier—although I am fairly sure that I will not get all the way.
I recognise the importance of providing Parliament with clarity on our future relationship with Euratom. The Written Ministerial Statement of 11 January includes a commitment to provide quarterly updates on progress.
I turn now to Amendment 9, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, which would require the Secretary of State to seek a transition period in the event that the UK is unable to secure new international agreements with the IAEA and nuclear co-operation agreements—or NCAs—with key third parties by 1 March 2019. I will address NCAs first. It may be helpful for me to set out that the UK does not itself have any requirement for NCAs to be in place for trade in nuclear-related items to continue—but some of our key trading partners do. In the US it is a legal requirement; in Japan, Canada and Australia it is a very strong policy commitment. That is why those four NCAs are our priority. It is quite right to stress how important this is: an NCA must be in place before such trade
with these countries can take place. Each of these four countries recognises the importance of putting in place bilateral NCAs to ensure uninterrupted co-operation and trade in the civil nuclear sector, following the UK’s withdrawal from Euratom.
There are also a number of countries, in addition to the four priority ones, with which we wish to discuss our ongoing nuclear co-operation to ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to allow continuity of trade. But in those cases—