My Lords, these are highly technical regulations and all I have to go on in seeking to scrutinise them is the debate that took place in the House of Commons on 14 January. On the issue of bilateral agreements with other nations, which are clearly vital to the handling of this nuclear material, the Minister, Richard Harrington, gave a comprehensive assurance that exactly the same agreements would be in place after 29 March as before. So that concern, which had been raised in the House of Commons, has been met.
However, in his concluding remarks, the Minister said:
“The nuclear safeguards regulations will also require operators to provide additional nuclear safeguards information to the ONR”—
the regulator—
“on qualifying nuclear material, and to the Secretary of State on certain non-nuclear materials”.—[Official Report, Commons, Third Delegated Legislation Committee, 14/1/19; col. 5.]
It was not clear to me whether that is a significant statement or an insignificant statement because it depends on what additional material they will be required to make available to the ONR and the Secretary of State. Can the Minister tell us the nature of the additional information that will have to be made available to the ONR, and why, in the event of no deal, additional information needs to be made available to the ONR over and above what needs to be made available now? Those in the industry who are reading accounts of our proceedings may be quite keen to understand that issue.