Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 165)
WEDNESDAY 16 JULY 2008
DR IAN
HUDSON, MR
ALEX WALSH,
MS FIONA
WARE AND
MR BILL
BRYCE
Q160 How does the authority encourage
companies to ramp up the skills base?
Dr Hudson: We have taken a number
of things. Skills are important to us, as set out in the Energy
Act. It is also important in terms of offering value for money
to the taxpayer because it improves the performance. The first
thing we have done is to take a strong leadership role. We have
set requirements on the site licence companies to develop these
skill strategies. They are incentivised to do an effective job
on skills, so they gain profit if they do a good job and they
lose profit if they do a poor job. We have done that over the
last three years to drive that. When we invest in infrastructure—and
we have done, for instance, at the high end of skills, such as
the PhDs and Masters area—we have tried to do that in partnership
with other people. For instance, in partnership with Manchester
University, we put in £10 million and they put in £10
million to create an institute in areas of interest to us. We
have invested in infrastructure to create a company called Energis.
We put £5 million in, but by working with both government
and the supply chain we have generated around £20 million
to improve the infrastructure. We have taken a mixture of stances.
We have taken a very strong leadership stance; we have incentivised
it, so it looks important to us; and we have partnered, which
is really very important because it improves what we are doing
as well.
Q161 Mr Cawsey: You are funding research
and new facilities, and the example has been given to us of the
Dalton Cumbria Facility. What involvement is there between the
authority and industry?
Dr Hudson: Through the site licence
companies we invest around £100 million a year. Of the order
of £50 million of that goes to the Nexia, which is the precursor
to the National Lab, and the balance of that goes into the supply
chain, so the supply chain benefits quite significantly from that
investment. In terms of things like the Nuclear Institute, we
are working with the University of Manchester. The model that
we apply is that we invest as a catalyst to create the capability.
We focus it on world-class skills and that capability is then
able to draw down the money from the industry, from the research
councils, and become self-sustaining. It is quite a fine balance
and an interesting model, because you invest maybe over five or
seven years to create the capability but it becomes self-sustaining
by operating in world-class fashion. It is a good model. It was
used by BNFL to create some centres at universities. We see that
as really good because it allows you to create commercial innovative
work as well a long-term commitment to R&D.
Q162 Chairman: Fiona, when you were
responding to Tim Boswell you talked about long-term skills that
were not funded by industry but which were of national importance.
What were you specifically referring to?
Ms Ware: This is probably going
back to when I was in Nexia—I worked in Nexia before I came
to work for AMEC—some of the programmes such as the molten
salts programme would be a long-term research programme but there
was no short-term benefit there. Those projects were not funded
through the site licence companies. There are programmes that
the NDA will fund now through their research programme, but I
think it is making sure that those programmes are available to
develop some of the skills which we will require and we will need
to maintain but which are not currently required on a commercial
basis at the present.
Q163 Chairman: Perhaps you could
have a little think about that and then drop us a very brief note
about some of those specific skills.
Ms Ware: Yes.
Q164 Chairman: The same with you,
Ian, in terms of the decommissioning. Perhaps I could finish this
session with you, Ian. We are a little confused about the decommissioning
time framework. That was brought home to us at Sizewell B yesterday.
Within the next six years there are six nuclear power stations
that are going to start their decommissioning programme, that
are going to stop producing electricity. What is the length of
the decommissioning programme? Perhaps you could put in a note
to us on that. What factors are involved in dictating how long
and, also, how much it will cost? There seem to be endless time
scales for some of these decommissioning programmes and we would
like to get a clear handle on that in terms of matching the skills
needs to the decommissioning programme.
Dr Hudson: I can write a note
to that effect. Generically, what affects time scales is a balance
between removing the high hazard part of the plant, which is the
fuel, and then making a decision about what the care and maintenance
regime might be, what time scales that might be.
Chairman: You indicated earlier, and
Fiona picked it up, that you now have clear programmes for decommissioning
with proper time lines. It would be really quite useful to the
Committee to have those.
Q165 Dr Iddon: I think we should
point out, Chairman, that yesterday at Sizewell somebody indicated
that the graphite core reactors could be decommissioned in less
than 10 years. Nine years was quoted.
Dr Hudson: One of the roles that
we fulfil on behalf of government is that the lifetime planner
approach that we use for our science we apply to British Energy
to get a sense of what the liabilities might be in the future.
If you would allow me, I can certainly put a note together to
that effect.
Chairman: We would be very grateful for
that. On that note, could we thank you very much indeed, Dr Ian
Hudson, Fiona Ware, Alex Walsh and Bill Bryce.
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