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Energy Bill

There is no guilty party, so let us all proceed in our innocence, although we are dealing with an extremely sophisticated issue. I was going to commend the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for the assiduous way in which he has addressed himself to the issue of the continuation and recruitment of expertise over recent years in the nuclear industry against the possibility that there would be a second wave of new nuclear reactors. Through that period, he identified necessary measures which the Government were concerned to continue, especially in courses being continued in universities enhancing the skills of those who were to take up those roles. He referred to the need for the pay rates which obtain at present to be competitive. I am grateful to him for having recognised that an initiative has been taken on that very recently—as recently as last November, there was an increase in the salary of the NII's nuclear inspectors. The purpose of that was both to retain those who work so competently in that crucial field and to aid the recruitment of new inspectors, who will undoubtedly be needed against the background of the increased level of work that we all anticipate. Reference has been made to the work of Dr Tim Stone. One purpose of his review is to consider how the inspectorate is equipped to review the new build proposals through the generic design assessment process. Another is how to enhance the culture of the organisation for it to be able to adapt to the demands of new nuclear build. I recognise the challenge. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, introduced one obvious aspect of that: anxieties expressed by the French about their installation at Flamanville. Our perspective on what the French have done is that it showed the French inspectorate in rather a good light. It was quickly on to the issue; the French regulatory oversight proved to be effective. It highlighted very early in the areas of potential weakness in the management of construction, seeking improvement. There is no evidence of basic design weakness in the reactor, but nevertheless that was important, especially given, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, mentioned, the increased level of co-operation envisaged, not least by President Sarkozy on his visit to the United Kingdom. We want to find ways in which co-operation can take place. That will not lead to the sharing of respective regulatory decision-making. That is a matter of national responsibility and the French would be no more keen on such shared responsibility than we are, despite the effusiveness of the president about co-operation during his visit to United Kingdom. The regulators may come to different regulatory conclusions regarding the acceptability of aspects of the EPR design, but they will share experience and technical findings from the safety and security assessment of the EPR design during the licensing process. They will look at ways of dividing up assessment work on specific aspects of the design as well as looking for opportunities to exchange staff. We all recognise the advantages that that can potentially bring. In other words, the collaboration is not the shelving of national responsibility for the safety of our reactors, but the likelihood that we will achieve the challenging GDA completion targets more readily and thus give greater confidence that new nuclear power stations will be up and running in line with the clearly defined energy targets for which the nuclear programme is intended to make its contribution. I assure the Committee that the regulators are recruiting to build up their capacity to manage the greater workload that is anticipated. They are investigating other measures to help manage GDA more efficiently, such as closer working with and secondments from overseas regulators, particularly the French, and increased use of technical support organisations for their work. These issues are all part of the Stone review on what needs to be done. We welcome French involvement in nuclear build, and we welcome the opportunities that the president of France indicated should be taken up in terms of collaboration between the two countries on the guarantee of safety. But that does not alter the fact that the Committee is concerned with a Bill that will regulate the British industry for which the British Government will alone be responsible. We will merely benefit from the contributions from elsewhere. Dr Stone announced his initial findings of the review at the investors’ conference on 12 June. He identified a number of short-term measures needed to help the NII to recruit, retain and support, and recommended that a human resource firm be appointed to support current recruitment activities, although we all recognise that a crucial aspect in that is the level of remuneration offered. He wanted a review of the existing employment terms and reward structures, and recommended that management level secondees should be appointed to provide support functions for the national inspectorate in order to allow inspectors to concentrate on the roles that they alone can perform. After all, they have specific expertise and, as we all know, it is relatively rare expertise. That is why recruitment is challenging, although it is going on apace. It is important that those who are recruited have their skills, expertise and abilities directed towards the primary job; which is inspection with regard to the safety of the design and implementation rather than broader management strategies. People with other skills may be employed to fulfil that role, which is what Dr Stone was concerned to emphasise. The proposed amendment would place—