WEDNESDAY 1 JULY 1998

MR D HENDERSON

  243. May I first offer my apologies for starting late and welcome you here? We had your colleague Mr Battle this morning and we dealt with some of the more internal matters relating to the DTI's handling of this and we understand you were not able to be here this morning. That may be a source of regret to Mr Battle because it might have meant that things were shared out a little more but we are very pleased that you could join us now. As far as these matters are concerned, we realise that your Ministry was involved in the initial negotiations and that probably from the outset you had to make judgements about the potential risk of the situation had the nuclear material been left in Georgia. A lot of attention has been given to the problems of its receipt and processing in the UK but perhaps you could explain to us the circumstances in which you and your colleagues came to the conclusion that it was better in Dounreay or certainly within the UK than in Georgia?

  (Mr Henderson) Thank you. I am very pleased to be able to be with you this afternoon and hopefully be helpful. I am sorry I was not able to come this morning but there were difficulties with diaries and differences in perceptions about distances from the north of England to the south of England. These have been resolved and I am pleased to be here now. A decision was taken by the Government at prime ministerial level on 2 February that this material should be removed at an appropriate time from Georgia to Dounreay. This followed six months of consultation among the relevant government departments, consultation with the American Government and consideration by our own Government on our obligations on the non-proliferation treaty. That treaty, which was reaffirmed in 1996 at the Moscow meeting by the previous Government, commits those signatories to the treaty to take action to do what they can to help non-proliferation. Several commitments have been entered into by our partners which are itemised in the short memorandum which I submitted to the Committee. The view of the Government was that we have an obligation to play a part in this, to do what we can. It seemed in this particular instance that it was easier and more appropriate for us to be the recipient of the material from Georgia once it was removed by the Americans and from February until the actual date when it was removed, further consultations took place between DTI officials and nuclear directorate officials on how best the material could be transported from Georgia in a safe way to a safe location in Scotland. It was my intention to announce through parliamentary answer the precise time that the material would be removed and received in Dounreay after it was received. Unfortunately the New York Times received a leak of the information and pre-empted my capacity to make that announcement in a proper way. It was essential that no announcement was made until the material was removed, under the guidelines which the International Atomic Energy Authority recommend to signatories, for very obvious reasons. If you have a highly dangerous material which could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, then you do not announce beforehand when you are going to move it or where you are going to move it to or how you are going to move it. One makes the public aware of what has happened after the necessary actions have been taken to secure the safe location of the material.

  244. Thank you; that is helpful. Mr Battle covered much of that ground this morning. One of the things which intrigued us was the fact that there were ultimately two flights not one, but more important than that, it appears that nobody really knew what you were getting, what you were negotiating about. The impression we have is that when they opened the canisters, lo and behold there was a different mix of materials than that which had been anticipated. Was it the responsibility of your officials to ascertain exactly what it was? Was there an on site inspection carried out in Georgia before it left? When the genie came out of the bottle it seemed to take a slightly different form than that which had previously been anticipated. Why was that?
  (Mr Henderson) Initially there were international inspectors who located the material in Georgia. Then a decision was taken that the material should be removed to Dounreay through the process I have already explained. The responsibility for determining how that movement should take place and how it should be secured, was one which was a Department of Trade and Industry responsibility, in cooperation with the Nuclear Directorate. They held talks with their counterparts in the United States of America to decide on how that should be done. At that point the technical experts would be familiar with the precise contents of the materials which were to be moved. As I understand it, the technical experts had not briefed the policy advisers to the Department of Trade and Industry of the precise nature of the additional material, which I did not announce to the House on 21 or 22 April. When I discovered that in fact my announcement had ignored the low enriched uranium, I then made sure that the information was made available to Parliament and in fact the Department of Trade and Industry did that immediately through a parliamentary question. It was the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry.

  245. It was not your fault. It was somebody else's, but it was a foul-up nevertheless. Would that be a reasonable summation of your evidence so far?
  (Mr Henderson) No. It was a responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry.

  246. What was?
  (Mr Henderson) To determine the precise nature of the contents. The political deal was struck that there were 4.7 kg of fresh fuel and spent fuel. That was based on the information that we had available. The technical experts then discovered that there was this additional low enriched uranium, 5.8 kgs of fresh fuel, 3.7 kgs of spent fuel. They did not advise the policy advisers to the DTI of that but when the Americans removed the material from Georgia they removed all the material. We subsequently found this out and then made the information available to Parliament at the earliest opportunity.

  247. These DTI inspectors were actually in Georgia. At what point did DTI officials find out how much uranium and what the nature of the material was?
  (Mr Henderson) The DTI officials had to make contact with the Americans on the contact that the Americans had had with the international inspectorate. It was through that process that we would be advised of the precise nature of what had to be moved. They would make assumptions as to what had to be removed. Their prime purpose was to decide how best it could be removed. In seeking to meet that second purpose, I believe they found that there was this additional fuel which would be removed.

  248. Maybe I could explain why we are going over this in such detail. There is a great deal of public anxiety about shipments of this character and about operations at Dounreay. The least, we would have thought, given the sensitivity of the issue, was that experts, so-called, would give us precise, not imprecise, estimates of what was going to be there. Was it not rather embarrassing to yourself and your fellow Minister that you found you had to make yet another answer to the questions because you did not get it right the first time?
  (Mr Henderson) If you are asking me whether I would have preferred to have made a more accurate report to Parliament on 21 or 22 April, the answer is yes. I made a report on the basis of the information that I had. When I discovered that I had made a report which was not accurate, I then took steps to correct it. It was the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry to advise Parliament.

  249. On the other hand, before you even got to the Despatch Box, do you not think the FCO should have established what it was that you were agreeing to remove and how much you were agreeing to remove? It took a fairly long time, did it not, to do the negotiations, to get the checking done, things like that?
  (Mr Henderson) In general terms it was important that we knew how much of the dangerous substance was in Georgia. Having recognised that it was a relatively small amount of material, but highly dangerous, we then took the necessary steps to reach the political agreement to bring that material from Georgia to Dounreay. The precise amounts and details were then left to the technical people and that was the Department of Trade and Industry's responsibility. They then advised the Foreign Office of what their inspection showed, therefore it was their responsibility. When I discovered that I had been given the wrong amounts, I then took steps to correct that at the earliest possible moment.

  250. And you were not pleased about it.
  (Mr Henderson) No, I was not over the moon about it.

  251. Can you tell me where the low enriched uranium came from because there is certain information circulating that that does not originate from the reactor in Tblisi? Secondly, can you tell us what was on the second shipment, the second flight?
  (Mr Henderson) The low enriched uranium was in the same location as the highly enriched uranium, the research centre in Tblisi where it had been used. When the Americans, whose responsibility it was to remove the material got there they found this additional material and they removed it. The deal was to remove all the dangerous material. The second flight was a flight which, as you may know, took a different route from the first flight because it purely carried handling equipment which was specialised handling equipment necessary to remove the casks which were transported in the first place, which contained the uranium.

  252. Was this simply to remove the casks from the flight to the transport?
  (Mr Henderson) For general handling.

  253. Is that handling material itself contaminated? Where is that now?
  (Mr Henderson) That would be a matter you would need to ask the Department of Trade and Industry experts.

  254. The DTI memorandum says ". . . no further such shipments were envisaged as needed or are proposed". But can you rule out finding out about comparable fuel elsewhere, especially as the IAEA have carried out similar surveys outside the FSU? Might there be similar material floating around say South Asia, South Africa, South America?
  (Mr Henderson) In relation to the former Soviet Union, as far as I am aware there are no other materials similar to the materials which were removed from Georgia, which would be required to be secured. I would be a very foolish man if I said that I can envisage no circumstances where new materials would be found. If new materials were found, either in the former Soviet Union or in some other location, then under our obligations in the non-proliferation treaties, and especially the reaffirmation in Moscow in 1996, as a responsible international signatory we would want to contribute to resolving the problem.

  255. Do you not think there is a danger that we might just become a soft touch and the French and the others stand back and let the UK get on with it?
  (Mr Henderson) No, that is not the case and we are certainly not a soft touch. Other nations have in more appropriate ways for them made a contribution to non-proliferation and the exact circumstances are outlined in the second page of my memorandum which I submitted to the Committee, which involved the Canadians, the French, the Germans, the United States.

  256. What about the possibility of South East Asia, South America, South Africa?
  (Mr Henderson) Wherever materials were found, if there is a way under the non-proliferation treaties of securing better safety for the whole of the world, and these materials were found in one of the locations you referred to, then the international community would want to try to deal with the situation in the best way possible. Clearly if there are very satisfactory storage facilities or reprocessing facilities in another country then providing that country notifies the International Atomic Energy Authority under their obligations under the treaty, then that may be a satisfactory solution. If it were judged that was not a satisfactory solution, and it might be judged by the country itself that it was not a satisfactory solution, then there would in my view be an obligation and certainly a moral obligation on behalf of the other signatories to try to address the issue and deal with it in a reasonable and responsible way and that means there has to be burden sharing. Those who are able to contribute, such as the named countries in the memorandum, would have to decide how the matter would be dealt with.

  257. Going back to the PQ which you mentioned, when we saw Mr Battle this morning he apparently suggested it would have been given on 22 April. You mentioned 21 or 22 April earlier. Was it to have been given on or after the material arrived on 24 April? Was the delivery delayed because of the leak in the New York Times?
  (Mr Henderson) As far as I am aware that had little effect on the delivery time. There were other factors which I cannot remember to do with logistics which possibly delayed it 24 hours. It may have been flight limits or something like; I do not know. Our political intention was to announce it to the House of Commons immediately the material arrived in Dounreay and we had to wait until it arrived.

  258. When it arrived.
  (Mr Henderson) Yes.

  259. Would it be possible for us to see the draft written answer from you or from whomever prepared it in advance of the shipment?
  (Mr Henderson) Yes, I am happy to furnish the Committee with that now, if you wish it.