Select Committee on Trade and Industry Annxes to the Report


Annex B

NUCLEAR

Georgian Nuclear Material at Dounreay, Ninth Report of 1997-98, HC 815: Government Response, Seventh Special Report, HC 1130, pages xiii-xvii

  1.  The immediate occasions of the Committee's inquiry were the revelation in April 1998 that some special nuclear material from Georgia would be accepted at Dounreay: controversy surrounding allegations on the policing of Dounreay and other United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) sites made by the recently retired Chief Constable of the UKAEA Constabulary, leading to a Private Notice Question in the House of Commons on 27 April 1998: and the interruption to the electricity supply to the Fuel Cycle Area at Dounreay caused by contractors construction operations on 7 May 1998. The Committee visited Dounreay in June 1998, hearing oral evidence at Thurso, and heard oral evidence at Westminster in July 1998. A report was agreed in July.

  2.  The Committee supported the decision to accept the nuclear material at Dounreay, despite the subsequent closure of the Fuel Cycle Area, while criticising the confusion over the composition of the consignment. It concluded that there should be greater transparency at Dounreay and at UKAEA sites generally and that the Directorate of Civil Nuclear Security should be put on a more independent footing.

  3.  The Reply was received in October 1998. It welcomed the Committee's views and accepted most of the specific recommendations.

  4.  Developments at Dounreay since mid-1998 and in particular the major HSE Safety Audit carried out in the autumn of 1998, are set out in the Committee's Fifth Report of 1999-2000 (see below).


 
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