| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Vinson: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that there are some 400 atomic power stations around the globe and some 30 either under construction or being built? The development of nuclear energy as probably one of the only ways in which to prevent CO2
12 Jan 2005 : Column 342
pollution is going on massively around us. The noble Baroness talks as though we lived in a totally isolated world and there were not numerous atomic power stations 32 miles away across the English Channel, in France, where they are renewing their entire atomic programme and generating capacity. If she recognised that, what she was saying might make more sense.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I remind noble Lords that the noble Baroness is limited to 10 minutes, and that that is the second intervention.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for reminding noble Lords that that intervention has taken up another minute of my reply. Of course I am aware of the construction around the world, but, equally, I am aware of the problems that those countries constructing nuclear power stations have in disposing of their waste, which is why many of them are choosing to send it to Britain.
I remind noble Lords that I introduced in your Lordships' House last year a debate on climate change. That is one of the gravest issues facing us at this time, so I do not underplay the role that nuclear power could play in solving the climate change issue if some of the other problems around nuclear power were solved. But they are not, and in the face of that fact it does not do to belittle the efforts of those committees and those people who are trying to solve those problems.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, for introducing the debate and doing so so very well. I should also like to congratulate him and his committee on having produced such a clear and concise report. I enjoyed reading it over the weekend and, as a lay person, I found it eminently readable, which I cannot say of most reports that I have to read. I have rarely read one that is so trenchant and uncompromisingly blunt.
I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, and my noble friend Lord Jenkin both used the word "trenchant". I sat there trying to think of a better one for a few minutes, but I could not think of anything that expressed it better. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, on saying the same thing in completely different words.
The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, in the carefully phrased wording of his Motion, very wisely does not ask the Government to comment on his committee's report. The unequivocal condemnation that it contains is beyond any credible answer. Indeed, if any of your Lordships heard the environment Minister's interview on the "Today" programme on 12 December immediately after the publication of the report, they would have been treated to the unedifying spectacle of a government Minister floundering hopelessly, trying to defend the indefensible.
As the Scientific and Technology Committee vigorously complained, it is indefensible that the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management's brief
12 Jan 2005 : Column 343
was to start with "a clean sheet". In response to John Humphrys' suggestion that reconsidering the possibility of firing nuclear waste into space was "barmy", the Minister defended this by saying that "you have to look at all the options". The fact is that this clean sheet is nothing more than a typical Whitehall tactic of delay when the Government—perhaps any government, of whatever political complexion—are unwilling to make a firm decision. They kick the matter into the long grass by forming a committee.
In this case, the present Government, who are masters of the art of talking but not doing, have added a refinement which deserves the Sir Humphrey Appleby Award for procrastination. They have set up a committee with a brief to ignore all the research and enquiries of the past 30 years. The brief includes, as we have just seen, reconsidering preposterous ideas that have long since been rejected by scientists around the world. The Government did not involve Defra's chief scientific adviser in the appointment of members of CoRWM, which has resulted in what your Lordships' committee roundly condemned as "inadequacies".
The Science and Technology Committee rightly pointed out to your Lordships that:
"There is a danger that without technical expertise CoRWM will be unable to evaluate evidence critically".
Many noble Lords have said that in their contributions, especially the noble Lord, Lord Tombs.
Of course, the Government did not really want a committee of scientific experts who actually knew what they were talking about. The lack of internal expertise within CoRWM has necessitated an outside consultant as programme manager. This is NNC, which describes itself as,
"the UK's premier dedicated nuclear services company . . . dedicated to delivering cost-effective engineering solutions and safety consultancy services".
These are excellent qualifications for a group but not for an individual member of CoRWM, but like the science committee I wonder whether there is a potential for, or even the mere perception of, a possible conflict of interest in the advice NNC may be called on to give. Due to lack of internal technical expertise, CoRWM has, so far, in the words of your Lordships' committee, wasted both a disproportionate amount of time and money on its own methodology. That is another by-product of starting with a blank sheet, including, in this case, re-inventing the wheel about how CoRWM should conduct its affairs, and even that it has dismally failed to do, in view of your Lordships' committee's astonishment,
I enjoyed listening to my noble friend Lord Jenkin talk about what happened in Ipswich. However, I did not enjoy that quite as much as hearing the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, regarding a CoRWM meeting being held in a room at the top of a long flight of stairs with a poor sound system so that people could not hear what was said. That makes the fact that you could not read the paperwork and the numbers were all wrong pale into insignificance.
12 Jan 2005 : Column 344
Clearly, CoRWM, despite its protestations, is not over keen to encourage the public to attend its meetings, to understand what is going on, or rather, if I am right, what is not going on. As I say, the noble Baroness described that very clearly.
The chairman of CoRWM, an economist, very properly declared to the science committee that he has,
In fact, he has been a notable critic of all aspects of nuclear power, on which he has commented from his position as a fellow of the Scientific Policy Research Committee of Sussex University.
Of course, I do not impugn Mr MacKerron's integrity or potential for impartiality, and I am sure that any preconceptions he may have will be balanced by his deputy, Jenny Watson, a former chairman of Nirex Independent Transparency Review Panel.
Not content with having sat on their hands for some seven years, the Government have given CoRWM until 2006 to produce its report. I hope that the Minister can tell my noble friend Lord Marlesford why the suggestion that it should be finished by 2005 was passed over. I predict that that will not be the end of it. If, unhappily, the present Government are still in power at that time—which I certainly hope they will not be—they will take several months, if not longer, to produce their own response, before setting up yet another committee to decide on implementation, followed by a wait for legislative time.
I mentioned earlier in my remarks that the carefully phrased wording of the Motion that we are discussing does not require the Government to comment on the validity of the contents of the Science and Technology Committee's report. Indeed, there is no need for any such comment because its indisputable sound common sense, arrived at by a committee of experts, which CoRWM is most certainly not, cannot be gainsaid. What the Motion calls for is for the Government to stop what John Humphrys in his Radio 4 interview with the Environment Minister described as—I quote exactly what he said—"faffing about". I am not too sure whether that is proper language for the House of Lords, but apparently it was perfectly OK for the BBC.
I would like to offer some help to the Government in reaching an immediate decision, rather than one which may emerge only in the distant future, and, indeed, is the same as the Select Committee has recommended. In common with other countries with nuclear industries, such as France, Finland and the USA, the Government should concentrate on underground disposal.
I shall ignore a few pages of my notes not only because time is limited but also because many noble Lords have already made those points.
I believe that the Government, who are unashamedly anxious to avoid making a decision about the future of nuclear power, use the question of waste management as their excuse for not doing so. If that is not the case—it was either the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, or the noble
12 Jan 2005 : Column 345
Lord, Lord Tombs, who said that he wondered what the reason was for this delay—perhaps the Minister will be able to tell the House.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |