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Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I was not a member of the committee, but I have read its excellent report. It is a good example of the value added by your Lordships' House to parliamentary government in this country. I shall briefly add my voice to the attempts to shame the Government into taking proper account of the report.
At a time when, month by month, we get examples of the malign and sometimes catastrophic effects of global warming, I find it extraordinary that, far from embracing the further practical implementation of Einstein's original work, which showed how much energy could be produced from nuclear power—energy that does not add to global warming—the Government appear to be sabotaging the prospects for it. Far from planning an expansion of nuclear power in Britain, the Government seem to be using the CoRWM committee to kick the nuclear issue into the long grass.
When the matter came up during Question Time, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, undertook to consider my suggestion that CoRWM be asked to report by the end of this year, rather than wait until the middle of 2006. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will give me an answer on that tonight.
I find it particularly sad—indeed, humiliating—that the Government seem to fail to recognise that Britain was in the vanguard of the developments in nuclear physics that led to the possibility of the peaceful use of atomic energy. Of course, I think of, among others, Lord Rutherford and Sir John Cockcroft, whose pioneering work at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in the 1930s led to the splitting of the atom and the practical proof of the validity of the magical formula.
Today, Britain lags behind other EU countries. In a Written Answer that I got just before Christmas, the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, told me that, in the EU as a whole, 32 per cent of electricity was generated by nuclear power. In France, it is 78 per cent; in Belgium, 58 per cent; in Sweden, 46 per cent;
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in Finland, 30 per cent; in Germany, 29 per cent; and in Spain, 26 per cent. In the United Kingdom, it is only 23 per cent, which, I think, includes what we buy from France. It is sad that, instead of nuclear, we are focusing on the political tokenism of wind power, which is intermittent, expensive and hugely damaging to some of our most beautiful countryside.
Basically, there are five crucial factors to consider in deciding whether to go forward with nuclear power. First, is or is not nuclear accepted as a source of renewable energy? I believe that to all intents and purposes, because of the virtually unlimited supply of nuclear minerals, it is. Secondly, is or is it not non-polluting and does it add to global warming? I believe that it is not polluting and does not add to global warming. Thirdly, is the modern nuclear reactor safe? I believe that the answer is yes. The Chernobyl accident had nothing to do with the intrinsic dangers of nuclear reactors and everything to do with the secrecy and incompetence of a Soviet socialist system. Fourthly, can the waste be stored safely? In its report, this committee concluded that:
I hope the Government accept that. Fifthly, can reactors which have come to the end of their lives be safely decommissioned? It is clear that the answer is yes. It is expensive, of course, but the cost is now included in the capital expenditure proposals of any such project.
I am afraid that I see political cowardice in the Government in trimming to ill-informed and highly prejudiced anti-nuclear pressure groups, most of which have their origins in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and ideological side-taking in the Cold War. I hope very much that my own party will include in its manifesto an undertaking to revive Britain's nuclear energy programme. Sadly, in conjunction with Whitehall bureaucrats, the Government seem to be playing a cynical game of "Yes, Minister" against the interests of this country and, indeed, the interests of the world.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I was a member of the Select Committee and I should like to thank our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, for his leadership, and all our staff for their work in helping us to reach our conclusions. I want to concentrate my remarks on the question of public confidence in the decision of CoRWM on the management of radioactive waste and the matter of its public consultation.
CoRWM's terms of reference require it to undertake two distinct but related tasks: one to propose a technical solution; and the second, to inspire public confidence in it. My impression, having heard all the evidence and attended the meeting of CoRWM in Ipswich during the course of our inquiry, is that the second task has overtaken the first in importance in the priorities of the committee. This is of great concern to me since there is no point in obtaining public support for a bad decision.
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One has to ask why the committee must inspire public confidence in its decision. The reason is obvious in a democratic society. Radioactive waste could present a major health and security hazard if not properly dealt with. It is therefore only right that a solution is found that is acceptable to the majority of the public. I have no argument with that. It is very important that that is done, and done well.
However, it has to be said that the public will have confidence in the decision if they are convinced that the very best independent technical advice and information has been obtained and that it has been analysed by people who are equipped to do so. Despite the growing loss of confidence in so-called "experts" these days, the public accept that most citizens know very little about nuclear physics, geology and civil engineering. Clearly a great deal more public education about the issues needs to be done before consultation can be really meaningful. It is only right that CoRWM should have both of these tasks. Sadly, I gained two unfortunate impressions from my observation of its meeting.
First, it seemed that CoRWM is far more concerned with the processes of decision-making than in getting on with the job. The vast majority of the time at the meeting was taken up with deciding not to decide. Very few decisions were actually made at all. Most things were put on hold until more information could be obtained.
Secondly, its understanding of transparency and effective public consultation did not impress me. As we state in our report in Chapter 3, paragraph 2:
"We agree with the Royal Society that 'the processes of public consultation are more or less well known and could be readily designed by experienced social scientists working with relevant technical and policy experts'".
The Human Genetics Commission and the GM crops consultations allowed us to learn many useful lessons. No doubt their processes could be improved, but they form a very good basis on which the committee could have started. I should like to ask the Minister why the committee have had to start from scratch on the public consultation.
I accept that the meeting we attended was not part of the main public consultation itself. Indeed, the process for doing that was one of the things being discussed at the meeting. However, in line with its transparency policy, CoRWM conducts its meetings in public, and our presence along with that of several members of the public was known to it well in advance. Despite that, I was horrified to discover that the building in which the meeting was held, Ipswich town hall, was just about the worst public building for public access I have ever come across.
The meeting was held in a room at the top of a long flight of stairs; there was no lift and no alternative disabled access to the room. The sound system was very poor. Straightaway you have eliminated people with walking problems and hearing problems. In fact, several Members of your Lordships' Committee had difficulties along both of these lines, let alone members of the public.
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Then there were the papers and the jargon. There were numerous papers without sight of which it would have been terribly difficult to make head or tail of the discussions. The papers were numbered in a very confusing way and they were not in order. So every time the committee moved to a new agenda item there was a good deal of shuffling and muttering among our colleagues, who were conscientiously trying, with a great deal of difficulty, to follow the proceedings.
There was also a great deal of jargon and acronyms used in the proceedings. With one notable exception, the members of the committee spoke in gobbledegook. Quite frankly, if I had been a normal interested member of the public, I would have been bored witless and would never have darkened its doors again.
If this is an example of the expertise of this organisation in making its meetings accessible to the public, heaven help it when it comes to the real consultations. I for one will have little confidence that it has consulted the public in any meaningful way. It would be almost funny if it was not so dangerous. By making everything so complicated in a mistaken attempt to be rigorous, the committee is not being transparent at all; it is being exceedingly opaque.
The public are not stupid. When matters are made unnecessarily complicated they suspect that someone is trying to blind them with science, pull the wool over their eyes, call it what you will. That is not what the committee wants, but that will be the result if it does not change its ways.
We also conclude in chapter 3, paragraph 9, that,
"We are sceptical that the public will in reality be interested or engaged by the current process, which will be perceived to be largely theoretical".
The Government have concluded that most people,
in other words, when a particular site or sites for disposal or storage are being mooted. The fact is that nuclear waste affects all of us, not only those living near the chosen site.
So the first priority must be to get the decision right and then convince the public by explaining it in terms they can understand and by demonstrating the credibility of the experts involved in making it. Of course, what the public will tolerate has to be part of the equation and is an important factor in the decision-making, but the public alone—important as they are—cannot decide.
Independent, top-quality scientists are most important. This pre-occupation with the process of public consultation seems to me to be an attempt to shift the blame to the public if someone does not like the decision when it eventually comes. Other speakers have already highlighted our concern about the lack of technical skills on the committee and our belief that reliance on consultants is not good enough. Even if the public consultation were of the very best, this shortfall would be fatal in my opinion.
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To conclude, I believe that if the eventual decision of CoRWM is to be acceptable to the public—in other words, if both of its tasks are to be achieved—it needs to pay more attention to its technical and scientific advice and spend less time discussing consultation processes that are already well established. The proposition that the committee needed to start with a blank piece of paper, both on the way to consult the public and to include all possible technical options, is quite preposterous. First, there is already considerable consensus among the reputable scientific community that deep underground storage is the safest; and, secondly, good practice for public consultation is already well established. Why not use it rather than spending months reinventing the wheel?
I have to ask myself "Why these two blank pieces of paper?". The only answer I can possibly come to is that the Government mistakenly equate procrastination and time wasting with good decision-making and believe that the public will trust the solution proposed if every detail of how it was arrived at can be demonstrated. I hesitate to conclude that the only other possible reason is another acronym, NIMTO—"Not in My Term of Office".
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