Clause 10 - Supplemental functions
Energy Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mr Norman Baker (Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 88, in
clause 10, page 8, line 4, at end insert
'except that no monies shall be passed to those responsible for generating radioactive material'.
I am happy to say that this is another probing amendment, which should gladden the heart of the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire. I seek to unravel the financial relationship between the NDA and the private sector of the nuclear industry. I hope to get a fuller answer from the Under-Secretary than with my previous probing amendment. I must say that having one's probing amendments responded to in that way does not encourage one to table any more.
The amendment would amend the provision giving the NDA the function, so far as it thinks it appropriate, to promote
''the carrying out of research by others into those matters''—
those matters being the ''decommissioning of nuclear installations'', the ''cleaning-up of nuclear sites'' and so on. I seek to clarify whether the Government envisage a situation in which the NDA would pass money to British Energy or another private sector operator pursuant to that function.
If, as the Under-Secretary has stated, British Energy is responsible for its own clean-up operations, it ought to be dealing with such matters itself rather than relying on the NDA to fund its research. Will private sector operators fund their own responsibilities, or will that be another subsidy from the taxpayer to the private sector in the nuclear industry? If so, what are the constraints and rules? Is it simply a matter for the NDA's discretion?
Will the Under-Secretary admit that there is a need to clarify financial propriety between the NDA and the private sector? How does he intend to deal with that? What method will be deployed to ensure that public money is not spent improperly, that there is proper accountability for that money, and that we have the opportunity to follow such matters in the House of Commons and to raise matters of concern?
Any arrangement whereby billions of pounds of taxpayers' money is out of our jurisdiction due to commercial confidentiality because contracts have been signed would be intolerable.The hon. Member for Tewkesbury raised a similar issue earlier about billions of pounds that he wanted to be subject to scrutiny, which he rightly put to a vote.
This is another example of a situation in which taxpayers' moneys may be handed over to the private sector through the NDA, but in which we may have no way of following what the NDA is doing, or its reason for doing so.
Will the Under-Secretary clarify the relationship between the NDA and the private sector in terms of financial propriety, and tell us whether he envisages that the NDA will be empowered to subsidise British Energy for what is its responsibility—the carrying out of research for its own sites for which it has financial responsibility? If he does not clarify this point, I will raise it again in debate on a later clause.