I will try Corridors of Power as well as The New Men. The one thing I will not do, because it is beyond what I should ask of my officials, who are absolutely wonderful and have looked after me very
well through all these debates and others, is ask them to read CP Snow. However, they might also take guidance from the noble Lord, Lord Jones.
The noble Lord also asked about the number of shipments by road. I can give him quite a number of figures. The total number of packages containing radioactive material transported by rail was about 1,500, and that was a total number of about 750 consignments. On road transport, we think that there were around a total of 110,000 packages, but again, you have to halve that because of going to and fro. The total figure we seem to have for road, rail and other means is around 40,000 packages. The majority are transported to nuclear power stations, but the transport of radioactive material by rail arises from the civil nuclear industry and consists of transport between Sellafield and the nuclear power stations, and from Sellafield to the low-level waste depository at Drigg. The road transport includes medical and industrial sources, some of which are moved more than once, hence bringing that figure down to 40,000. PHE estimates that 76% of packages transported by road in the UK are medical, 4% are industrial, and the remaining 20% are in the nuclear industry.
I will quickly deal with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about the nullifying part of the regulations. I explained that the provision would be nullified, but the noble Lord asked about how nullification happened. There is no formal process—it just happens because a provision has been nullified, and there is case law which indicates how the courts are to treat such a nullified provision. I presume that if it is nullified, it is treated as if it is not there. If the noble Lord wants the case law, it is Inco Europe Ltd v First Choice Distribution in 2000.
On the question of emergency and who oversees that, the emergency plans, which the noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked for, are a matter for the Office for Nuclear Regulation, which is laid down by the Energy Act 2013. Obviously, any definition of “emergency”, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, points out, to some extent has to be subjective, but further details will be set out in guidance from the ONR. The reference here is based on the IAEA best practice.
The noble Lord also wanted to know just how we would then manage excessive doses. As I think I set out at the beginning, the regulations make lawful a deliberate exposure at high levels in an emergency. Obviously, in extremis workers might be subject to that higher level of exposure. They could not be ordered into such a situation, but—again, as I set out at the beginning—obviously, if it is a question of life and death, that is a different matter.
On the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Jones, about the 500 milliSieverts level, the regulations provide that in exceptional situations—in order to save life, prevent severe radiation-induced health effects or prevent the development of catastrophic conditions—the reference level for an effective dose from external radiation for emergency workers may be set above 100 milliSieverts, but not exceeding 500 milliSieverts. In line with this provision, the CDG regulations disapply the IRR 2017 dose limits, subject to a maximum of 500 milliSieverts, providing that the emergency worker,
“is engaged in preventing the occurrence of a radiation emergency; or … is acting to mitigate the consequences of a radiation emergency”.
As I said, further guidance will be available from the ONR. These regulations tightly restrict the circumstances under which an emergency worker may be exposed to that maximum dose. They state that such exposure is possible only if this worker is engaged in activities for the purpose of saving life and with their informed consent.