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Energy: Radioactive Waste Management

My Lords, with permission, I shall repeat a Statement made earlier in the other House by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Statement is as follows: ““With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the report of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management—CoRWM—which was published on 31 July. Similar Statements have been made in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. I thank the chair, Gordon MacKerron, and the members of the committee for the outstanding effort that they put into arriving at their unanimous report. ““The issue of nuclear waste disposal has dogged successive Governments. CoRWM was asked to recommend the best option, or combination of options, for the long-term management of the UK’s higher activity radioactive waste to provide protection for people and the environment. The Government believe that CoRWM's report provides a very strong basis for moving forward with clarity and consensus. We accept CoRWM's recommendations that the UK's higher activity waste should be managed in the long term through geological disposal, and the continuing need for safe and secure interim storage until the geological disposal is available. We also agree with CoRWM that we must continue to build on the momentum that it has helped establish. ““As CoRWM’s report observes, geological disposal is the approach being adopted in many countries, including Belgium, France, Finland, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. Nevertheless, securing geological disposal represents a major challenge and will require a commitment over many decades. We accept CoRWM's recommendation that the process for developing a geological disposal option should be undertaken on a staged basis, with clear decision points. This will allow Government to review progress, assess costs and value for money and environmental impact before decisions are taken to move to the next stage. ““Planning and development of the geological disposal option must be based on four keypillars. First, it must have a strong and effective implementing organisation, with clear responsibilities and accountabilities. Secondly, there must be strong independent regulation by the statutory regulators—the Health and Safety Executive, the environment agencies and the Office for Civil Nuclear Security. Thirdly, there must be independent scrutiny and advice to Government on implementation. Fourthly, there should be a partnership with the host community. ““The CoRWM report observes that the safe and secure storage of civil legacy radioactive waste already falls within the remit of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority established under the Energy Act 2004. The NDA also has responsibility for disposal of low-level radioactive waste in its current remit. We have decided that responsibility for securing geological disposal of higher activity waste should also fall to the NDA, to create one organisation able to take a strategic view through all stages of the waste management chain, accountable in a clear and transparent way to independent regulators and Government. ““The NDA is already subject to statutory safety, environmental protection and security obligations under the Energy Act 2004, and its contractors are subject to regulation by the environment agencies, the Health and Safety Executive and the Office for Civil Nuclear Security. Its strategy and annual plans are subject to approval by Government. We will ensure that in future the longer-term radioactive waste management interests of Government are appropriately represented in the NDA’s strategy, and that it has governance arrangements to reflect its increased responsibilities. ““Nirex has played an important role in maintaining and developing the UK's knowledge on geological disposal, including the provision of advice to industry on waste conditioning and packaging, since the demise of its own geological disposal development programme in 1997. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I, as joint shareholders in Nirex, are grateful to the successive chairs and the board for their hard work, and of course to the expert staff involved. None the less, the Government believe that having two organisations on the same playing field with potentially overlapping responsibilities has the potential to confuse and blur accountability. Instead we are determined to harness the skill and commitment of the staff involved within the NDA. Following the Statement we shall allow Nirex a short period to comment on the proposed ownership transfer and how it could best be brought about. ““The independent environment and nuclear safety regulators believe that this proposal will provide a framework that they can regulate in a strong and effective manner. They are content that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will be responsible for implementing the geological disposal programme, within the constitutional arrangements which I described earlier. The regulators’ support is of major importance, as strong independent regulation is key both to ensuring the safety of people and the environment and to securing confidence and trust in the delivery arrangements. ““Coming to the third key pillar of our approach, we remain committed to independent advice. Accordingly, a successor independent committee will be appointed to give advice on the plans for the long-term management of radioactive waste. CoRWM has set the standards for open and transparent advice that takes into account not only the best available scientific and other expert input, but the views of the public and stakeholders. It has also built up support and brand recognition. ““The new committee will therefore maintainthe current name, but its membership will be reconstituted to reflect its role in the next stageof the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme. The committee will be sponsored by Defra, the DTI and the devolved Administrations. Its primary functions will be to advise onthe implementation of a geological disposal programme, including considering the strategy and delivery plans and the site selection process. It will make its advice available to the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales, as has been done by CoRWM. ““The circumstances surrounding the long-term disposal of higher activity radioactive waste are unique. We have made it clear that we are not seeking to impose radioactive waste on any community. In this context, we are strongly supportive of exploring the concept of voluntarism and partnership arrangements with the local authorities serving communities that might be affected. As CoRWM recognises, there is a need to consider further how such arrangements could work in practice. Accordingly, we will look to further develop a voluntarist and partnership approach including the stages and decision points, how communities would be involved, the role of democratically elected bodies, and the potentialfor involvement and community packages, as suggested by CoRWM. ““Disposal facilities will be built only in a geologically suitable area, and we will consider how geological and scientific considerations will be meshed with other societal considerations as, for a successful programme, all criteria will need to be met. I invite any local authority or group of local authorities that wishes to be involved in these discussions to contact myself, my honourable friend the Member for Dudley South or officials directly. Similar invitations are being extended by my colleagues in the devolved Administrations. ““It must be stressed that any future facility-siting process will be a wholly new process, divorced from the historical Nirex process. Lessons have been learnt from that. We are also determined that the new approach will be carried out fromthe beginning in an open and transparent waywith appropriate opportunity for public and stakeholder as well as expert involvement. ““In the light of this further work, the Government will produce an implementation framework and publish it for consultation as soon as possible next year. ““This announcement, and the more detailed response which I am publishing today, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House, completes stage 2 of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme. We are now entering stage 3 on planning for implementation. We aim to be able to move to stage 4—the final implementation stage—in 2008, confident that the sharing of information and viewpoints and the transparency of the CoRWM process has been maintained. ““The CoRWM report says that, "‘for over three decades, efforts to find solutions to the problem of long-term radioactive waste management in the UK have failed’." Governments of all parties have struggled to develop a long-term approach to this issue founded on science and driven by openness and transparency. I believe my Statement today combines scientific rigour and clear accountability, and I commend it to the House””. My Lords, that concludes the Statement.