1.  This memorandum provides information with regard to the position of The Scottish Office concerning the recent consignment of nuclear material from Georgia to Dounreay. The memorandum is in response to the invitation dated 17 June 1998 from the Clerk of the Committee. It considers the areas set out in the Committee's Press Notice of 14 May announcing the inquiry and, as requested, it focuses particularly on the volume of material and the HSE report into safety in the Fuel Cycle Area. Many of these matters were covered in the written evidence submitted by the Department of Trade and Industry on 11 June.

INTRODUCTION

  2.  The Secretary of State for Scotland is:

—  responsible for environmental policy in Scotland;

—  responsible for safety policy at civil licensed nuclear sites in Scotland, advised and supported by the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive;

—  answerable to Parliament for the work of the Health and Safety Commission in ensuring an appropriate regulatory framework for nuclear safety in Scotland. Day to day regulation is performed by the Health and Safety Executive's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).

  The Scottish Office also sponsors a range of NDPBs, including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

MERITS OF THE DECISION

  3.  The decision to accept the material from Georgia should be seen in the context of the political instability in many countries in the former Soviet Union and the very real concerns that in such a situation the material could fall into unfriendly hands and be used for non peaceful purposes. The Scottish Office was party to the early discussions considering the merits of taking this material to the UK as a practical demonstration of the UK's commitment to the international non proliferation regime.

CHOICE OF SITE

  4.  Dounreay was identified as the most appropriate site in the UK to receive this material. It specialises in handling small quantities and had expertise and experience in dealing with Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). The alternative was Sellafield, where the expertise is more in dealing with large volume reprocessing of irradiated low enriched uranium fuel.

WAY DECISION WAS REACHED AND ANNOUNCED

  5.  The Scottish Office was notified at official level at end July 1997 of the proposal that Georgian uranium be brought to the UK. Following further contact at official level, Scottish Ministers became aware of the proposal in September when the Foreign Secretary formally wrote to colleagues. There ensued detailed consideration at official and Ministerial level, in particular about the issues of waste and spent fuel, non-proliferation and facilities in the UK to handle the material. Ministers' collective decision was that the UK should take the Georgian material. This conclusion was reached on non-proliferation grounds. It was not a commercial decision.

  6.  The intention had been to announce that decision in Parliament immediately after the safe arrival of the material on-site. As the Prime Minister made clear to the House on 22 April 1998, an announcement could not have been made earlier if the UK was to comply with the requirements of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. Regrettably, however, disclosure of information about the project on 21 April in The New York Times pre-empted the intended notification to Parliament. SEPA subseqently publicly indicated its acceptance of the Government's decision, having earlier been informed of the Government's proposals by The Scottish Office and then asked for their views on 15 April.

POSSIBILITY OF SIMILAR DECISIONS IN THE FUTURE

  7.  The case for taking the Georgian material was based on non-proliferation grounds. As a signatory and depository nation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Government has obligations to fulfil. Other countries have taken action in support of nuclear non-proliferation and international security, particularly Russia, which has taken back 137kg of fissile material from Iraq since the Gulf War, and the US, which, amongst other things, took 600kg of material from Kazakhstan, France, Germany and Canada have also been involved in projects to convert stocks of excess plutonium into fuel for reactors. In the course of the consideration by Ministers and officials, it was established that surveys by Western security experts of all civil nuclear facilities in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union had confirmed that the Tbilisi facility was the only one where removing the fresh and spent fuel from the country appeared the only practicable solution in terms of safety and security. In these circumstances, the acceptance of the Georgian material is seen very much as a one-off decision.

LEGAL AND FINANCIAL FRAMEWORK

  8.  From the Scottish Office's point of view, the relevant legal framework is the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 as amended. The Act provides the framework for controlling the creation and disposal of radioactive wastes so as to protect the public from hazards which may arise from disposal to the environment. The Act imposes requirements for registration of the use of radioactive materials and for authorisation of accumulation or disposal of radioactive wastes.

  9.  Looking at finance, acceptance of the Georgian uranium was not a commercial deal. The decision was taken on non-proliferation grounds. The United States Government met the cost of transport between Georgia and the UK and also met the purchase cost of the material from Georgia. Cost of transport within the UK, storage and processing/reprocessing the material fall to UKAEA.

VOLUME OF MATERIAL FROM GEORGIA

  10.  The initial information on the material notified by the US government to the UK government and thence to The Scottish Office in July 1997 was some 5 kgs of HEU, held at a single research reactor in Georgia, including around 1 kg of irradiated fuel. More precise, but still unverified, technical details were passed to a DTI policy official at a meeting in Washington in late February 1998, which focused on security and logistics issues. These details were passed directly to the small team at Dounreay charged with preparing for the safe and secure arrival of the Georgian material there. As a result, policy officials in DTI were unaware of the greater detail available, officials in The Scottish Office were not told about it and Ministers continued to be advised that the consignment comprised 4.3 kgs fresh material and 0.8 kgs spent fuel (all HEU) until some weeks after the consignment arrived at Dounreay.

  11.  On 2 June officials at The Scottish Office received a faxed copy of a note written in DTI the previous week, when the position had been clarified by DTI policy officials, showing both HEU an LEU as having been shipped from Georgia to Dounreay. This showed some 14.3 kgs of uranium, of which some 4.7 kgs was HEU. Scottish Office officials, having confirmed the detail of the DTI note and the circumstances around it, advised Ministers of this information on 5 June. Full details were given to Parliament by the Minister for Energy, Industry and Science on 10 June.

NII MEMORANDUM ON SAFETY IN THE FUEL CYCLE AREA

  12.  On 10 June 1998, Scottish Office officials were informed by the Health and Safety Executive's Safety Policy Directorate that the Trade and Industry Committee had requested sight of a report into the safety of the Dounreay fuel cycle area prepared by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate site inspector at Dounreay in June 1997. Although it had been sent at that time to DTI and to UKAEA, it had not been shown to the Scottish Office. HSE explained that the report was an internal regulatory document written in deliberately strong language with the sole objective of prompting management action at Dounreay and that the DTI in their capacity as holder of the Government's shareholding in UKAEA, but it would have been a criminal offence under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 s.28 to release it without UKAEA's consent. It was agreed that, in view of the Secretary of State for Scotland's accountability to Parliament for the safety of nuclear sites in Scotland, HSE would provide The Scottish Office with a copy.

  13.  HSE's Deputy Director wrote to the Secretary of State on 11 June with a copy of the report, apologising for not having previously shown it to The Scottish Office and seeking advice on its handling in the expectation that HSE's discussions with UKAEA would result in them giving their consent to publication. The Secretary of State replied on 12 June requesting that the report should be released to the Committee, and at the same time published in full with supplementary material explaining its context. This was done by HSE on 15 June following the receipt of consent from UKAEA on 12 June.

July 1998