My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. I want to focus on the one issue that will cause me to vote for this amendment if my noble friend puts it to a vote. That is the way that the Government have been playing Russian roulette with our energy security by the ill-considered and ideological rush to leave Euratom without being sure that an equivalent regime is properly in place. The jeopardy this places the UK in is well set out in the latest briefing from the Nuclear Industry Association. The Government are doing a very unusual and risky thing in ignoring the advice of the nuclear industry’s experts simply because of their obsession with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which, let me remind the House, has never intervened in a Euratom matter during the duration of Euratom’s life.
There is little evidence that it is impossible to secure UK accreditation from the IAEA and negotiate a raft of new nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries before exit day. As the NIA briefing makes clear:
“Without access to Euratom’s NCAs and common market, the nuclear new build programme, nuclear could be seriously affected”.
Clearly, a responsible Government would stay in Euratom and not risk the disruption and uncertainty to a critical industry that departure brings, but not this Government. They claim that they will secure an equivalent alternative set of arrangements to membership of Euratom by exit day. Their backstop for failure seems to be that by the end of the transition or implementation period they are trying to negotiate with the EU. Despite yesterday’s upbeat gloss put on the negotiations of a transitional period, no such arrangements have yet been agreed by the Council of Ministers; they may well not be before the Bill leaves this House. Even if they are agreed before Royal Assent they will not provide for a transition period beyond the end of 2020. That may still not be long enough to secure all the new NCAs the UK needs, especially with the United States.
As the NIA briefing makes clear, without these agreements the trade in goods and services to maintain our existing nuclear reactors—these generate 21% of the UK’s electricity—is put in jeopardy, as is the building of new reactors. Sizewell B is particularly vulnerable because it relies on an NCA with the United States, and a new NCA is effectively a treaty, which requires congressional approval.
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I have had the pleasure of living in the United States—at a slightly happier time—and of working in US government. Securing congressional passage of
legislation is a highly uncertain experience. This is a legislature that is willing to shut down its own government in disputes over funding, so holding up an NCA with the UK is pretty small beer for the US Congress. It is far from certain that a new NCA with the US could be secured even by the end of 2020, whatever reassuring words the Minister might utter. Congressional approval is totally outside the Government’s control. Even if by good fortune the Government did secure a new NCA in time, it is likely to be a nail-biting experience, causing great uncertainty in the industry for the best part of two years.
In these circumstances, I suggest to the House that the only responsible action the Government could take is to remain part of Euratom until new arrangements can be guaranteed to be in place. If the Government are unwilling to do this, it is in the national interest for the House to pass this amendment and ask the Commons to think again.