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Low Level Radioactive Waste

On 18 March 2005, I announced that the UK Government and devolved Administration Ministers had agreed that a review of policy for the long-term management of the UK's low level radioactive waste (LLW) should be undertaken. I explained that the initial stages of the review would be overseen by a Steering Group drawn from the Government's Radioactive Waste Policy Group (RWPG). I said that the Steering Group would be organising two national stakeholder workshops during 2005 to support consideration of the issues and possible solutions, and that this would contribute to the preparation and issue of a Government consultation on the revised policy proposals. I can now inform this House that all this work has been completed and that this has resulted in the publication today of the consultation document ““A Public Consultation on Policy for the Long-Term Management of Solid Low Level Radioactive Waste in the United Kingdom””, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House. This consultation is being sponsored jointly by Defra, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment. Responses to the consultation are due by 31 May 2006. The LLW management policy review is being carried out for three main reasons:"the national LLW disposal facility, near to Drigg in Cumbria, does not have sufficient capacity to meet future forecasts of LLW arisings. Indeed, the Environment Agency's ongoing review of the site's disposal authorisation has served to call into question its previously estimated capacity;""the NDA must have the necessary disposal routes available if it is to progress its decommissioning and clean-up programme of the UK's older, publicly-owned civil nuclear sites. It is also questionable whether the large amounts of lightly contaminated rubble and soil that will arise from such decommissioning and clean-up should be dug up and transported over large distances, merely to deposit it again at the LLW disposal facility close to Drigg, which is a limited and relatively expensive national resource;" The policy proposals on which views are being sought include:"whether we should allow greater flexibility in the way LLW is managed. Government propose that it should not all be sent to the LLW disposal site near to Drigg in Cumbria. This would particularly apply to the large amounts of very low activity LLW that will arise from decommissioning and clean-up activities that could be disposed in various ways, at the site of arising if this is the best practicable option. But this flexibility must also maintain the necessary level of safety through the use of a risk-informed approach, and the preparation of plans and safety cases that are acceptable to the regulatory bodies; coupled with this more flexible approach to disposal, could we effectively place greater emphasis on minimisation of arisings through use of the waste management hierarchy advocated for other forms of non-radioactive waste management;""whether NDA should be placed in the lead for providing disposal facilities for all nuclear LLW, and also whether it should make its disposal facilities available for non-nuclear LLW generators where this practicable, subject to appropriate commercial arrangements. It is also proposed that the NDA would be placed in the lead for securing any replacement to the LLW disposal facility close to Drigg;""whether local communities should take greater responsibility, through appropriate use of planning strategies, for dealing with non-nuclear LLW arising from non-nuclear producers—eg hospitals and research and educational establishments—that serve their community. Government propose to contribute to this process by commissioning a study of the extent and geographical distribution of arisings of such non-nuclear industry wastes." The LLW management policy review is being carried out in parallel with the work of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), which is assessing options for the long-term management of the UK's higher activity wastes. The outcome of the LLW consultation, and the policy statement resulting from it, should be available in the summer of this year at about the same time as CoRWM delivers its higher activity waste management recommendations.