Mr Fred Barker, Mr Clive Bates, Dr Joe McHugh and Dr Clive Williams

19 FEBRUARY 2007

  Q220  Lord Tombs: Finally, my Lord Chairman, a question for Mr Barker. Are you happy about this Nirex-NDA relationship?

  Mr Barker: As far as it is possible to tell at the moment in terms of the way in which events will unfold, I think it is probably the right thing to do. We have said publicly that we want to be able to see where the function relating to the NDA role in the repository siting programme is located within the organisation, so that it is clearly visible and can relate to potential host communities through the siting process. I think there is potential in terms of the way in which the process is moving forward for that to be achieved. It is a provisional yes, but we want to see how events unfold because there is a degree of uncertainty about where the expertise will be.

  Lord Tombs: And a mobile situation by the sound of it.

  Q221  Lord Flowers: I want to ask the Environment Agency, if I may, how many of your expert staff have personal experience of handling nuclear waste in bulk? None?

  Dr McHugh: We would have to come back on that.

  Dr Williams: We would, yes. Some of our site regulators, whom we recruited from the nuclear industry have direct previous experience in that field, for example, and for our nuclear waste assessment team which my colleague, Dr McHugh, has mentioned, they have particular expertise in assessing safety cases for disposal, the underlying research and, indeed, some of the materials technology. I happen to know that one of the members of the team has a research degree in cement technology, for example; obviously this is relevant to waste conditioning for ILW.

  Q222  Lord Jenkin of Roding: One was reassured about what Dr McHugh told us a little while ago, that you hope this interim period would be a fairly short one, because it is quite clear that although Nirex has not been a regulator it has had functions which have been remarkably similar to those of a regulator and this has been referred to earlier. We recognise that all these arrangements are liable to come before the courts in one way or another in the instance of some of the NGOs, and I would have thought that there might be quite a prospect of, shall we say, Greenpeace using counsel's opinion, which I referred to at the last sitting, to challenge the merger of the NDA with Nirex. I wonder whether you have had to consider that?

  Dr McHugh: Greenpeace does challenge legal decisions in the courts, as we saw last week. We think that the new arrangements can be made to work and, as I indicated before, in the spirit of co-operation with the NDA and Nirex we have been trying our best to make that work. If someone chooses to challenge the arrangements then we would defend that if they were challenging our regulatory role. We agree with you, I think that these arrangements are not ideal and we want them to move to a more robust arrangement as soon as possible.

  Q223  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I probably would agree with you. Could I put some questions to Mr Barker, and I should perhaps declare an interest as a Vice President of the Local Government Association? You have told us what your role is in relation to the local authorities that have nuclear installations in their patches, but in your written evidence you suggested that the NDA's existing site stakeholder groups do not really meet the needs of the new partnership arrangements as envisaged by CoRWM and by the Government, and I wonder what you would have thought was necessary to make sure that they did meet those requirements.

  Mr Barker: I think this is really a question of what the appropriate vehicle is for community and local stakeholder engagement through the siting process. To answer that question about what the appropriate vehicle is you have to look at what the purpose of local community and stakeholder engagement would be. Our position on the purpose of local engagement is that all the questions and concerns of potential host communities about repository siting, construction, operation, closure and post-closure are addressed and resolved as far as is reasonably practicable, and, secondly, that the wellbeing of host communities is enhanced. Our view is that this should be in a sense a mission statement for whatever body is set up locally to ensure effective local engagement through the siting process. Once you have got the purpose clarified a whole series of potential roles for a local organisation follows and we take the view that the roles that follow include developing advice and recommendations to decision makers in the process in particular at the local level. Of course, we have already had the discussion about the role of CoRWM and its role at the national level but we feel that at local level there should be a specific body set up for those areas that are participating in the process. We call this body a `siting partnership' which has this function of producing advice and recommendations, particularly to the local authorities in the area who we think should have the responsibility, for example, for decision-making about willingness to participate, including potentially the exercise of a veto, the decisions about the acceptability of the benefits package, the decisions about the acceptability of proposed local sites for field investigations and so on. We see the function of the siting partnership as to produce advice and recommendations to the relevant local authorities on those sorts of local decisions. We also see a role for a siting partnership in terms of obtaining specialist advice or commissioning research to inform its role, to identify community concerns, to identify the ways of developing benefits packages which would enhance community wellbeing, for example. We see a siting partnership as having a specific role in providing public information so that the local communities are well informed about the programme, the stage it has reached and the issues involved. We think it is very important that the local siting partnership is primarily responsible for local engagement programmes with local communities and the public. Once you start to look at that range of roles you begin to realise that there is quite a substantive programme of work and a high level of commitment for local partner organisations in a siting process for those areas that are participating, to the extent, we feel, that a siting partnership would require a small number of its own dedicated staff. If you then go back and compare that to the existing site stakeholder groups, there is quite a difference in terms of the capability of the organisations, the siting partnership on the one hand and the site stakeholder group on the other. It is also important to note that the site stakeholder groups only exist around current NDA sites and we are talking about a siting process that could involve a short list of sites which are different from NDA sites. The site stakeholder groups meet relatively infrequently. They are only resourced at the level appropriate to their current role, which I think would be inadequate to the task that a siting partnership would have to undertake. Existing site stakeholder groups are also serviced by a secretariat which is provided by site licensee companies. In this case the siting partnership would need to be serviced by a dedicated staff, not those who are paid from one of the existing site licensee companies. The reason we do not think that the existing site stakeholder groups provide a suitable vehicle is essentially because there needs to be a qualitative shift in the nature and resourcing of local community engagement for this particular process, the siting of a geological repository.

  Q224  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I find that rather a convincing statement. Clearly this will be a very important issue for the Government to decide and when we met the Minister the last time he told us that they were still not yet decided whether to invite communities to volunteer as part of the forthcoming consultation or whether to have a two-stage process, but from what Mr Barker has been describing it would seem to me that that should come first, that the process and procedures should be established before there is any question of approaching individual authorities or seeking their volunteering. Would you agree with that, Mr Barker?

  Mr Barker: I think it is essential that the implementation framework is in place before any authority is invited to volunteer its area to participate in a siting process We would also take the view that the initial high level geological screening in the UK should take place before any authorities are invited to participate. We do not want to see a situation where the screening has not taken place and there could be discussions involving local authorities in those areas where there is very little or no prospect of there being suitable geologies. We do not want those local authorities in a sense to waste their time going through difficult discussions about participation.

  Q225  Lord Jenkin of Roding: That is a response that has been very well made in the written evidence. There is no point in stirring people up if there really is virtually no prospect of their having to facilitate the details. How might a community become interested in coming forward with this partnership concept, volunteering, as it has been called, and what in your view might an involvement package consist of?

  Mr Barker: There are two parts to that question. First of all, NuLeAF has been concerned to raise awareness amongst our member local authorities about the process that the Government has embarked upon. We have already held a series of regional seminars around the country where an official from Defra has been able to present the Government's response to CoRWM's recommendations, and where we have been able to get a discussion going about key aspects of the future implementation framework relating, for example, to partnership working and so on. That is the start of a process of raising awareness about the process that the Government is about to embark upon. It is very important that that process of raising awareness continues and so, for example, we are in discussion with the LGA about organising a national conference for the autumn to involve local authority leadership at both political and officer level. It is intended that this would take place during the course of the Government's consultation on the implementation framework. Throughout the process there need to be these steps of increasing the profile of the issue and then raising understanding so that authorities can begin to make tentative steps towards reaching important decisions about whether or not they would wish to participate in this sort of siting process. I have gone on so long you will have to remind me of the second part of the question. It is the benefits package, is it not?

  Q226  Lord Jenkin of Roding: Could we come to that in a moment? Would you see this national conference that you are considering as coming before or after the publication of the Government's White Paper?

  Mr Barker: We would like to time the conference so that it takes place within the consultation period on the draft implementation framework so that those authorities that are representing at the conference have an opportunity following the conference to formulate their responses to the consultation.

  Q227  Lord Jenkin of Roding: So you think that should come first, before the White Paper?

  Mr Barker: Yes.

  Q228  Lord Taverne: It does seem to be assumed that there will be local authorities that will volunteer and the whole policy has been based on that. I am just wondering how sound that assumption is and how seriously it has been taken that this might be more difficult than is assumed. One knows that local authorities have not always acted in accordance with scientific evidence. The opponents of nuclear power are extremely powerful and we have seen local authorities ignore the evidence about phone masts, about GM crops, about overhead electric wires, none of which has any scientific evidence but they still get swayed by the very effective propaganda from Greenpeace and others who have a formidable PR relations machine. Do you think you are aware of the seriousness of this task of persuading authorities which have existing sites for waste storage to come forward, even though it might be in their interests to do so?

  Mr Barker: Clearly it is not predicable in advance how many authorities might be interested in this process. I would advise ministers not to expect a stampede, clearly, but in particular those areas of the country which currently host radioactive waste management facilities will want to look very carefully at the way in which the implementation framework is developed. It is in their interests to do so, and they will, I assume, as part of their judgment, be weighing in the balance whether they would prefer to see continued above-ground storage for these wastes ad infinitum compared to the potential for getting them disposed of in a geological repository. I cannot, hand on my heart, sit here and say to you that I am confident that X number of authorities will volunteer but I do believe that this particular process offers much more prospect for a successful outcome than the old decide, announce, defend style of process.

  Chairman: Lord Jenkin, did you get an answer on the package?

  Q229  Lord Jenkin of Roding: We have had a lot of very interesting information, but how might a community become interested in the sort of package that you might contemplate?

  Mr Barker: We are currently doing some work on what we think the implementation framework should say about benefits packages and that work is currently subject to discussion with our member authorities, so I can only at this stage provide an outline of provisional views, and we will submit to you our detailed briefing paper when it becomes available early in March. We think that the implementation framework needs to lay down some very clear principles about the sorts of benefits packages that might be available and set out a very clear process for the way in which those packages would be negotiated and agreed through the siting process. In terms of the principles, we think there is much to be said for having the framework for negotiation of benefits packages set around the principles of contributing to the sustainable development of the local area and, in CoRWM's words, "enhancing the wellbeing of local inhabitants and their descendants". We would like to see a situation where local communities that are participating in the siting process have the opportunity to negotiate what a benefits package might look like which fits with those sorts of principles. There is a whole range of obvious things which involve job creation and business creation, enhancing the availability of skills, improvements to leisure and health services, improvements to the built environment and so on, but I think at the stage of the implementation framework it would be inappropriate to constrain what an appropriate package should look like, although it is appropriate, as I say, to frame the negotiation on a set of principles. I hope that helps but, as I say, we will send you the details.

  Q230  Lord Howie of Troon: I thought I had heard in your very first reply a little while ago the frightening word "veto". I am not quite sure what you meant there, but if there was a situation in which volunteers mutinied I do not think they could have a veto; the national interest must prevail, and earlier witnesses have agreed with me. What do you think? Is NuLeAF a mutinous bunch?

  Mr Barker: It is not, but I would have used the words "right of withdrawal" which we prefer to "veto".

  Q231  Lord Howie of Troon: But you did use the word "veto".

  Mr Barker: Did I? Okay. Our view is that we think a right of withdrawal goes hand in hand with an approach that is based on willingness to participate, and the reason we think there should be a right of withdrawal is that it would help even up the relationship between national and local bodies in this process. If the local party has the right of withdrawal we think that provides a safeguard to ensure that local issues and concerns are properly addressed within the process. However, with a right of withdrawal goes a series of responsibilities. For example, we think there needs to be a clear understanding of the conditions under which a right of withdrawal could be exercised. It must be exercised in a responsible way; it cannot be exercised willy-nilly. As part of the further work we are currently undertaking we are looking at the processes internationally which involve the right to withdraw. For example, there is a whole series of conditions attached to the right of withdrawal that local authorities have in Sweden. We are starting the process of looking at those conditions under which the right of withdrawal might be exercised and we will reach a view on which of those conditions might be appropriate in a UK context. It would not be a reckless use of right of withdrawal. It would be one based on agreed conditions at the outset, and we also recognise that there would come a stage within the siting process at which it would not be appropriate to carry the right of withdrawal forward. In particular, once a decision was taken to construct a repository and there was about to be large-scale public expenditure you would not expect to see a right of withdrawal potentially exercised by the local parties in the process.

  Lord Howie of Troon: I can see that such an idea would be very useful during the political process of the negotiation to try and reach agreement, but in the end the national interest must prevail if a site is shown to be suitable and the local people do not like it.

  Q232  Lord Haskel: Moving on to the question of research, a recent report from a workshop held at the University of Loughborough, which was attended by technical experts, stressed the importance of a focused research and development programme. What do you think the focus should be of such a programme and why?

  Dr Williams: I will briefly address for the Environment Agency the technical issues and then my colleague Clive Bates will deal with some of the sociological issues. We co-sponsored the Loughborough workshop. The Environment Agency recognises the need to engage the research and development community. That is something we believe in strongly. We have reviewed Nirex's R&D programme and we can provide our report of that review to the Committee if that would be helpful. From that review we see that there is a need for future R&D to be planned in a way that delivers the outputs that are needed at particular times in the implementation programme, so that is a particular programming issue that needs to be taken forward in the future. There are current technical issues that we see that the focus of R&D should contain: first of all, a review of repository design options and how a design can be optimised. There are some complex topics at the moment, such as gas migration and nuclear criticality, that we are interested in, and some issues that would be relevant to siting, such as the applicability of overseas experience on different geological settings and how those relate to the UK environment. There are also issues that are relevant to waste conditioning and packaging, such as alternative encapsulants, waste forms and package longevity, which is an issue that we have identified needs further research. Then progressively, as implementation proceeds, much of the necessary R&D will be site specific and will need to take account of pre-existing knowledge about a particular site. We have got quite a range of experience on the international front. We have been involved with international R&D ourselves and we keep in touch with that. Above all we see a need for the research to be communicated in a widely intelligible and credible way throughout the programme. We feel that is a very important feature going forward in terms of establishing trust.

  Mr Bates: Just to follow that up, we see a big emphasis on the science and technology, quite rightly, but also there are a number of researchable socio-economic questions that could follow along in an R&D programme, for instance, an understanding of who is affected by the siting of a repository near them: how do land prices change, what is the community that is affected? Secondly, what is the best way of formulating these benefits packages and how can you do that in a way that is not disruptive or where you do not get perverse incentives for people to come in or leave, for the community to basically remain stable? Those are researchable questions. Then there should perhaps be something about the trade-offs one would make between different sites, taking account of their characteristics. Do you want to trade off geology for the additional transport costs and the risks and hazards associated with those? You might get different levels of community acceptance. In some areas you might have better characteristics of sites and there might be trade-offs of total cost. This sort of work has been researched in the past but it is about having a decision-making framework that will define what trade-offs are acceptable and how they might be bounded; these are again researchable questions. There is a group of questions like that which are open to a research agenda.

  Q233  Lord Haskel: I think the social and economic research topics could probably be done from the reservoir of researchers that we have, but the same report made the point that there is a great shortage of nuclear scientists and engineers, and, of course, the technical research is going to require a lot of nuclear scientists and engineers. How are we going to train them? How are we going to find them? How are we going to find the centres of excellence because to some extent it is an ageing profession?

  Dr Williams: It is, and I think various organisations have a role to play in this. In addition to the Environment Agency the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has its own skill strategy and we would expect the particular national needs to be built into the NDA's programme going forward, so that is what we will be looking to see. Another aspect of this is that it is an international issue and there is expertise overseas that could be brought in to add to the competence that is already available in this country, and that could be done in various ways, by partnership approaches, for example. There is that broad scene that needs to be considered.

  Q234  Lord Flowers: You have not mentioned the word "university".

  Dr Williams: And I should have done; that is quite correct.

  Q235  Lord Flowers: Do you actively support research work at universities?

  Dr Williams: We do commission research work ourselves and that work is tendered. Yes, we have supported R&D in various fields over the past decade, and yes, we do. We also nurture our own expertise in-house as well as supporting other bodies.

  Mr McHugh: On Lord Flowers' point about the skill shortages, generally the Environment Agency has shortages of skills in a number of areas and we have a strategy to address those. In relation to civil engineers in particular we have sponsored a foundation degree to recruit new civil engineers, for example. It is one strategy that we could adopt.

  Q236  Chairman: If I may revert to the report of the Loughborough University workshop, which stressed that decisions are required as to whether high-level waste, intermediate-level waste, spent fuel and so on can all be disposed of together in the same repository, could it mean that, depending on what decisions are made on this, we may need more than one repository for legacy waste? Would this be practical and desirable?

  Mr McHugh: In principle one could have a repository for spent fuel and nuclear materials which would be co-located with a repository for intermediate-level waste but you would probably need to have separate chambers for the spent fuel and the vaults for the intermediate-level waste because there could be interferences between the two. Intermediate-level waste is very mixed, it is very heterogeneous, whereas spent fuel and high-level waste are relatively homogeneous, so that would need to be included in the repository safety case. I go back to a point made earlier, that it needs to be very clear what the inventory of the repository is going to be very early on so that that will inform the safety case, whether, for example, existing stocks of uranium and plutonium are disposable in the future in the repository and declared as waste. A decision on those is needed before you decide on the size of the repository and its characteristics. Those decisions we see as being needed early on and those are what we see as the strategic requirements.

  Q237  Chairman: And if an announcement is made on new build is this a further complication? How should that nuclear waste be managed?

  Mr McHugh: In relation to new build the Environment Agency is neutral; we are neither for nor against, but in relation to radioactive wastes from new build we think that the Government needs to include those in its planning for a repository for long term waste management, although, assuming that the spent fuel from new build was not to be reprocessed, its volume could be relatively small compared to the existing method of managing waste but its activity could be very high, practically double the existing inventory in the UK if one postulates that new reactors might operate for, say, 60 years. It is not a simple question. One needs to do quite a bit of work to establish the size of the repository and its characteristics in relation to existing wastes, material which may lead to wastes and the new build wastes which may arise in the future.

  Q238  Lord Taverne: Coming back to the question about persuading local communities, do you think there is scope for more involvement from universities and professional bodies in establishing a dialogue with the public? Do you think that there will be in that sense a fairly wide process of involving experts in the issues of the science and technology of radioactive waste?

  Mr Barker: Can I make reference again to the siting partnership organisation that we were discussing earlier? There will clearly be a need for specialist input to a siting partnership at a local level and that specialist input might range across how you define the benefits package, it might involve issues associated with the siting and design of a repository, it might involve issues to do with long term safety and environmental impacts, and it will almost certainly involve specialisms associated with how you go about engaging communities and communicating information of a technical nature. Some of the specialist knowledge that you require within a siting partnership would be available from within local government and other local agencies. Some of it would be available from the NDA and the regulators, but I am sure that there would be a need for additional specialist input and the siting partnerships would need to look to their local or regional educational establishments, universities, to provide that specialist input which they could not provide in-house. The short answer is yes, I think there is a role and we are thinking about it in the context of these local siting partnerships in particular.

  Q239  Lord Howie of Troon: Going back to local government and so on and the regulatory perspective, how might devolution affect the geological disposal programme?

  Mr Barker: I can start by saying that I do not think it is possible to predict how it might impact on it but our expectation would be that the UK Government and the Scottish Executive would put in place arrangements which would enable any differences of view to be negotiated and resolved. From a local government perspective, as I said in my introductory statement, we represent local authorities in England and Wales, not in Scotland, but there is a similar organisation to NuLeAF that is being established in Scotland. We are working closely with the local authority that is setting up that group to make sure that we can have effective liaison arrangements and possibly joint working groups on particular issues. Our aspiration would be that local government in England and Wales and in Scotland has the same if not similar policy on the question about how to go about implementing a geological repository. We will put our own house in order in that sense in terms of making sure that we have good liaison arrangements in place with the Scottish authorities.