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Energy: Radioactive Waste Management (S&T Report)

My Lords, I am on the Liberal Democrat Benches, but I have never said that we are unanimous on this subject. As on many other issues, we welcome a plethora of opinions within the party. However, party policy is quite clear: we are anti-nuclear, mainly because of nuclear waste, but also because of the cost of nuclear development. The report talks about radioactive waste management rather than a radioactive waste solution. Of course, there is no solution to radioactive waste, even though the nuclear industry has done an amazing, even commendable, PR job, giving the impression that, if you walk anywhere near a wind turbine, you will suddenly drop dead as your sensibilities are offended by its aesthetic qualities, whereas a nuclear reactor could be seen as a tourist destination. However, being against new build does not mean that we will not face the increasingly big legacy issue of radioactive waste from past processes. Not all this waste comes from the production of electricity; a vast quantity comes from the military and a fair degree comes from medical processes. I accept that there has been a uniformity of opinion in this House that deep storage is probably the only solution—whether that storage is sealed or open is a debate for another time. The problem that I foresee is that, as the report clearly shows, there does not seem to be any haste in getting to this point. The noble Lord, Lord May, talked about the French moving towards deep storage. However, even though they have talked about it and have good processes, they have not started constructing their facilities. I find this worrying. It is a very difficult situation, which has to be dealt with on a local basis—I am talking about local communities and all the opposition that will arise. The academic argument about deep storage should rest on the geological formation underneath the landscape to be chosen, but short-term political considerations will no doubt influence decisions on what should be a repository that lasts hundreds of thousands of years. Do the Government have in mind a specific timescale for the repository? We have talked about this subject many times and it seems incredible that there is no start date. On page 5 of their response, the Government say of recommendation 4: "““Government will be presenting proposals for a phased site selection process in its consultation document. It is acknowledged that this process will take years. There has never been any suggestion that it will take three or four months””." I am particularly worried that no indication is given of how many years; the Government just say ““years””. This is underlined by the almost labyrinthine structure that underpins any management decision. I know that the problem is historical and that there has been a massive amount of cross-departmental responsibility for the issue, whether on the part of the DTI, now DBERR—or ““DEBRIS””—or on the part of Defra. One of the recommendations is to try to make the situation as clear as possible, but I am sure that the Minister will agree that that process has not yet been concluded. Some haste is needed on this. Two issues should not be underestimated. When one of the NGOs ran a viral campaign on the internet against nuclear power, it showed people holidaying on a beach looking up and seeing a jumbo jet being aimed at the nuclear power station next to them. Having looked into this matter, I know that it is quite possible that many nuclear power stations would survive a direct hit from a jumbo jet. That is heartening. However, the nuclear waste storage facilities are soft targets, which would not survive such an attack. This has been discussed openly, including on Radio 4 the other day, so it is not a national secret. The other issue is decay. The longer we keep these sites open, the harder it is to keep up the management styles, and the cost of keeping the facilities running to the required standard is very high. We have only to look at the environmental catastrophes that have taken place at the reprocessing plants in Russia and in areas dealing with decommissioning to see what could happen if we let the sites decay. When do the Government foresee the first amount of money being paid for a deep-level repository? So many processes are involved, as set out in the report, that this issue could last for decades, and it is very likely that we will be having this discussion in many debates to come, which is unfortunate. I very much hope that the Government grasp the nettle and go for deep geological storage, and I hope that they do so not over a period of years but that they set a timetable and work to it.