This article was published on line at nuClear News (No.101 November 2017) on 9
November ( http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo101.pdf).
I think it merits wider readership, so have posted it here:
The government cannot guarantee Britain will have enough nuclear
inspectors when it leaves the EU. The Office of Nuclear Regulation has
recruited four new safeguards inspectors but says it needs more time to fill
the specialised roles. Nuclear minister Richard Harrington said there was
"plenty of time" to recruit the staff needed. But he stopped
short of offering a firm guarantee. The government has stressed that nuclear
safeguards - the processes by which the UK shows its civil nuclear material is
not diverted into weapons programmes - are different from nuclear safety - the
prevention of nuclear accidents. Mr Harrington said the UK was committed to
leaving Euratom in March 2019. (1)
Industry figures have warned about significant disruption to
energy production in the UK if there is not a new inspection regime ready to go
to, to replace the one currently overseen by Euratom.
Dr Mina Golshan gave evidence on behalf of the Office for Nuclear
Regulation to the Safeguards Bill Committee on 31st October 2017. (2) Dr Golshan completely ducked addressing the most
important aspect of the bill, according to nuclear security expert Dr David
Lowry. It is- not the operational technicalities which concern Lowry, but the
diplomatic acceptability of a nation state asserting that it will replace an
independent international safeguards verification regime with a self verified
regime, albeit one that intends to be populated by the appropriate expertise
from a current recruitment drive.
Dr Golshan also overlooked the fact the current trilateral
safeguards agreement (UK-EURATOM-IAEA) has an opt out of safeguards application
to fissile material, under its article 14, if the Government so decides; and
this has actually been done over 600 times since September 1978, when the
trilateral safeguards agreement came into force. Foreign states regard this as
UK 'do-it-yourself' nuclear proliferation on an industrial scale, as comments
at successive NPT review conferences attest, but ministers routinely ignore.
Indeed, the ONR itself now publishes annual data on such
withdrawals on its web site, http://www.onr.org.uk/safeguards/withdrawals.htm
See: Nuclear Safeguards Bill 2017-19 – Library briefing, http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8107/CBP-8107.pdf
2. Hansard 31st Oct 2017 https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-10-31/debates/805f6dd4-a8f6-483e-8af4-6d44113a317b/NuclearSafeguardsBill(FirstSitting)
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