Select Committee on Public Accounts Minutes of Evidence

2.  Supplementary memorandum submitted by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

  Question 41 (Angela Browning): What the approach has been in terms of longer term recovery of contamination costs compared to the Sellafield site generally.

  In regard to estimates for decommissioning of each of the NDA designated sites, it is the responsibility of the SLC to produce a technically feasible and costed plan for remediation of all the facilities, infrastructure and land on the site to an agreed end state. The end state for each site, which has been consulted on with stakeholders, may differ and as such the extent of the remediation required may well vary. NDA does not proscribe how the end state is achieved but examines as part of the Lifetime Plan assurance activities the approach proposed by the SLCs and the adequacy of provisions made.

  In regard to Sellafield, an exercise is currently underway within the SLC to gain a more refined understanding of the decommissioning costs for the key facilities and potentially contaminated land, with the results of these studies informing future Lifetime plans and thus overall UK civil nuclear liabilities. The majority of the facilities at Sellafield and the other sites are unique and first of a kind with the historic facilities, dating back to the 1940s and 50s, not built with decommissioning in mind. As such whilst opportunities do exist to develop generic decommissioning approaches and tools and techniques on one facility and deploy them elsewhere, translation into a prescriptive national approach is considered over simplistic. The sharing of good practice is achieved by technical baseline sharing and industry wide working groups, sponsored by NDA. Given the diversity of approaches required across the UK sites a simple parametric approach to cost estimating is not possible. As such the decommissioning estimates are subject to significant uncertainties.

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  Question 63 (Mr Philip Dunne): What the Comprehensive Spending Review is for your Authority for the next three years?

NDA Summary Income and Expenditure SR04 and CSR07

	05/06	06/07	07/08	08/09	09/10	10/11	Total	Total	% Change
	Actual	Actual	Budget	F'cast	Estimate	Estimate
	SR04	SR04	SR04	CSR07	CSR07	CSR07	SR04	CSR07
	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million
Berkeley	31	39	50	68	47	47	119	162	36.2%
Bradwell	49	41	32	30	30	30	122	89	-26.9%
Dungeness A	51	51	44	42	37	36	145	115	-21.0%
Hinkley Point A	57	55	37	40	40	40	148	120	-18.8%
Sizewell A	50	52	39	41	37	37	142	115	-18.6%
Magnox South Support	-	-	28	29	30	29	28	87	206.4%
Chapelcross	57	63	57	55	49	48	178	152	-14.3%
Hunterston A	45	37	38	52	51	54	120	157	30.5%
Oldbury	57	66	69	81	73	74	193	228	18.1%
Trawsfynydd	50	53	51	62	57	64	155	183	18.4%
Wylfa	85	90	105	93	88	92	280	274	-2.2%
Magnox North Support	-	-	18	18	18	19	18	55	209.7%
Electricity Trading	94	67	77	53	55	52	238	159	-33.1%
Harwell and Winfrith	96	99	95	60	60	60	291	180	-38.1%
Dounreay	146	147	158	152	157	160	451	468	3.8%
Sellafield and Calder Hall	990	1,174	1,208	1,296	1,281	1,301	3,372	3,879	15.0%
Capenhurst	24	21	24	27	19	7	69	54	-22.6%
Windscale	22	34	36	35	32	34	92	100	8.6%
LLWR	19	29	38	37	29	18	86	85	-2.1%
Springfields	262	245	267	322	328	357	773	1,008	30.4%
Culham	1	1	0				3	-	-100.0%
Non site expenditure (includes DRS)	232	317	334	299	340	268	882	908	2.9%
Total Expenditure	2,420	2,679	2,806	2,893	2,857	2,827	7,905	8,577	8.5%
Commercial Income	1,341	1,250	1,221	1,110	1,247	1,121	3,812	3,478	-8.8%
Waste Substitution Income	-	-	160	250	-	-	160	250
Total Income	1,341	1,250	1,381	1,360	1,247	1,121	3,972	3,728	-6.1%
Grant in Aid & EYF	1,168	1,450	1,371	1,535	1,609	1,705	3,989	4,849	21.6%
End Year Flexibility (EYF)	-	89	110
(Surplus) / Deficit	(89)	(110)	(56)	(2)	1	1	(56)	(0)

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Prepared 10 July 2008