Nuclear waste burial plans prompt political row
Britain’s radioactive waste will be buried underground but councils will not be forced into accepting it, the government announced yesterday.
Environment secretary David Miliband said there would be a “participation and benefit package” for those local authorities that agreed to take waste in their areas, but stressed: “We are not seeking to impose radioactive waste on any community.”
However, his comments were overshadowed by Scottish first minister Jack McConnell’s suggestion that waste from Scotland’s nuclear power plants could be buried in England.
During a speech on Scottish independence on Tuesday night, he said: “Nuclear waste is most likely in the UK to be placed in the north-west of England. And that is part of the partnership that we have here, that we share each other’s challenges for the future.”
In the Commons yesterday, Mr Miliband said he would be accepting the recommendations of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) to bury nuclear waste deep underground, where the rocks would block the radioactivity.
But he accepted this move was controversial and said decisions of where to site these underground bunkers would be taken in an “open and transparent way” – implying that, unlike Mr McConnell, he would not pre-empt the process.
“We have made it clear that we are not seeking to impose radioactive waste on any community. In this context, we are strongly supportive of exploring the concept of voluntarism and partnership arrangements,” Mr Miliband said.
Opposition parties welcomed his announcement – the Liberal Democrats said burial was the “least bad solution” to disposing nuclear waste and the Conservatives noted ministers had accepted that a “robust” interim storage solution was needed until sites were chosen.
But both parties raised concerns about the government’s plans to merge Nirex, which is currently responsible for nuclear waste disposal, with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
“Is there not a danger that conflicts of interest will arise from the fact that the NDA, which owns the waste and existing sites, will also.be responsible for implementing the geological disposal?” said shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth.
“How will the secretary of state ensure that, in selecting the sites for storage, the NDA will not only act, but be seen to act, with complete impartiality?”
Lib Dem environment spokesman Chris Huhne also expressed concern that Nirex’s skills would be lost in the NDA, which “has a financial incentive to deliver decommissioning at the lowest possible cost, rather than on the basis of safety or environmental concerns”.
“That seems bad for safety and the environment, and it represents a considerable setback for the secretary of state in dealing with the interests of the nuclear industry and the Treasury with regard to environmental protection,” he said.
However, Mr Miliband noted that the NDA had been created not by the nuclear industry but by parliament, under the Energy Act 2004. He said it would be subject to strong independent regulation by the Health and Safety Executive among others.
“The NDA works not for the industry but for this House and this parliament, which gave it a very clear mandate to serve the public interest,” he said.
