ATOMIC ENERGY (PEACEFUL PURPOSES)

HC Deb 25 February 1955 vol 537 cc1625-77

1.5 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell (South Buckinghamshire)

I beg to move, That this House welcomes the possibility of the benefits to be obtained from the peaceful applications of atomic energy, with particular reference to the programme outlined by the Government for the development of electricity from nuclear power and to the use of radioactive isotopes in research, medicine, industry, and agriculture. The world has long been accustomed to draw its warmth and power from the stored-up energy of the past by means of chemical reactions. When the nature of those chemical reactions came to be fully understood, as a result of the progress of atomic physics, it was realised that locked up in the nucleus of the atom was a source of energy millions of times greater than that which we had been exploiting by familiar chemical processes such as burning and which was entirely untouched and untapped by those processes.

It was not until 1939, however, as a result of the work of Lord Rutherford and his distinguished team of pupils— including Sir John Cockcroft and others, many of whom are now scattered in responsible scientific positions in all parts of the world—and of the fundamental research carried out mainly in this country that the secrets of how to unlock that source of power was discovered.

Unfortunately, the years which followed 1939 saw an intensive development of that discovery in the interests of military striking power. That, of course, was an inevitable development, since the Second World War supervened almost immediately after the publication of the fruits of those fundamental researches; and, in consequence, the fruition of the work of Lord Rutherford and his pupils came vividly before public attention as a result of the explosion of the bomb at Hiroshima in August, 1945.

Since then, the world's main anxiety, very naturally, has been whether the human race can preserve itself from destruction from the continuing development of this fantastic source of energy. That is inevitable, because if we do not succeed in limiting and controlling nuclear explosions, we shall be unable to interest ourselves or to derive any benefit from all the other peaceful uses to which nuclear energy can be put.

But, in fact, the peaceful uses to which the power of the atomic nucleus can be put are already numerous and are increasing rapidly year by year, and this Motion aims to draw attention to those many peaceful uses which have been multiplying and growing almost unnoticed by public opinion in the shadow of the great bomb explosions.

One result of the concentration of public attention upon the military development of atomic energy has been that we frequently underestimate the contribution made by the United Kingdom to the development of the use of nuclear energy. Had it not been decided to transfer the work on atomic energy of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to Canada and the United States in 1943 in order to take that work out of the range of German bombing and carry it forward more intensively in countries where manpower was not strained by the demands of war, and where material resources were more abundant and had been less intensively canalised into more immediate military preparations, British work in nuclear science, which was ahead of that anywhere else in the world at the time, would not have become merged in the parallel development in the United States.

The statement made by the Prime Minister in 1945, after the explosion of the bomb on Hiroshima, made clear the pioneering role of our country in that respect. But, since then, that has become rather overlayed, and continuing attention upon ever bigger and better explosions as one bomb succeeded another has created the general impression that in the atomic field the United States leads and other countries follow. If that assessment of the position has been at all correct in the past few years, I emphasise again that it is solely because of the necessary allocation of endeavour we made between ourselves and the United States and Canada in the later years of the war.

Since 1946, Britain has been catching up in the nuclear field the ground she lost in that way. This is not the occasion to remind the House of the programme of construction of atomic factories from 1946 onwards under the supervision of Sir Christopher Hinton, but in the course of that programme entirely unfamiliar problems, on the very largest scale, had to be met. They were successfully overcome and atomic energy factories of various kinds went up at Spring fields, Windscale, Capenhurst and elsewhere in addition to the experimental plant at Harwell. There are other projects now in course of construction at Calder Hall and Dounreay.

It is a matter of congratulation to the Atomic Energy Authority and those who control it, and, in particular, its Production Division, that the achievement of that Division can be summed up in the sentences I will quote from one of the more recent Government publications on the building of Britain's atomic energy factories: The first bulk output of plutonium was produced on the date specified. In less than five years the Division built a new industry worth some scores of millions of pounds; every factory came into operation within a month of the estimated date, every plant cost within a small percentage of the estimated sum. It is an achievement that will stand comparison with any other in the history of British industry. I am sure that with those sentences the House will cordially agree.

As a result of the concentration of attention on atomic bombs we have not watched the more peaceful development of the Atomic Energy Authority with quite the public care and attention it has deserved. This is perhaps a happy opportunity for saying not merely how much we hope for the future, but for saying, also, "Well done" for the past. The programme has shown not only great vision and imagination, but also extremely careful and successful planning.

Ten days ago, Her Majesty's Government presented the Command Paper containing their provisional programme for the generation of electricity from nuclear energy. It is an immense programme under which two great power stations will come into production in about five years from now and a further 10 power stations will come into production over the following five years. That is an immense concept. Two power stations of about 100 megawatts in the next five years is in itself very surprising, but that it should be possible to bring into actual production a further 10 in the following five years really does catch the imagination and make one feel that in the sphere of nuclear development once again Britain has run right ahead of the rest of the world. In ten years' time it is estimated that these power stations will be contributing a capacity of not less than 1.600 megawatts to electricity generation. As the White Paper points out, in ten years nuclear energy will be providing one-quarter of the newly-installed generating capacity of the country.

In twenty years' time, by1975, it will be possible for all new generating capacity to be based on nuclear energy. The next twenty years will be years of transition. At present, all our electrical energy is produced either from the burning of coal or the tapping of hydro-electric resources. Over the next twenty years we shall have to build a certain number of coal-fired power stations but, thereafter, it will probably be possible for all new generating construction to be of a nuclear type and by 1975 a quarter of the total generating capacity of the British electrical industry will be based on nuclear power.

A quarter of the capacity means more than a quarter of the total generation, because it is intended that these stations shall be base load stations which will operate continuously at full load. The coal-fired stations will take the fluctuation of demand up to and below the maximum. Therefore, a very considerable part—certainly more than a quarter—of the electricity consumed, from 1975 onwards will come from nuclear energy.

The total capital expenditure involved in this programme is given in the White Paper as £300 million. That is a far higher initial cost than that of coal-fired stations because the competitive power of atomic generation depends on the relatively low cost of running the stations. The main item in the cost is the initial capital expense. It is desirable to run the atomic stations as the base load stations so that any saving below the maximum consumption is taken up by the coal-fired stations, where the capital cost is lower but the running cost is much higher. The figure of £300 million is a useful guide to the magnitude of the investment which this country is to make under the Government's programme.

In twenty years' time, we shall be saving, by this programme, about 40 million tons of coal annually. The projects put forward in the White Paper will place us ahead of any other country in the peaceful use of atomic energy. That is a matter which one ought to emphasise, because we have felt in the past that we have fallen behind. No other programme of anything like comparable dimensions has been announced in the world. What goes on behind the Iron Curtain, one does not know, but as far as can be gathered there is nothing behind even that veil of secrecy which compares in magnitude with the projects outlined in the White Paper. The Government are to be greatly congratulated on their courage and imagination in putting forward this programme.

For us in Britain, it is not simply a matter of prestige to put forward an imaginative atomic programme. Without this programme, we should in ten or twenty years' time be running into serious difficulties about fuel. The White Paper points out that the cost of generating electricity by nuclear fission will be about 0.6 of a penny per unit, which is about the same as the cost of generating electricity in an efficient coal-powered station. That is in itself a comforting comparison, but it is not the true comparison.

The true comparison would be the cost to generate electricity by nuclear fission in the proposed stations compared with the cost of generating that power by burning coal during the next ten, twenty or thirty years if there were no nuclear stations. If that were the position, the shortage of coal in this country and throughout the world would become so intense that the cost of coal might rise considerably above its present cost, so that it would no longer be possible to generate electricity by burning coal for anything like six-tenths of a penny per unit. In any case, whatever the cost of coal, we might find ourselves quite unable to get sufficient coal to generate all the electricity that we shall need in twenty years' time.

The magnitude and boldness of the project outlined in the Command Paper are not, therefore, merely a measure of the success of the Atomic Energy Authority or the courage of Her Majesty's Ministers; they are not merely a matter of prestige for this country as compared with the rest of the world. They are a matter of vital necessity for the economic and industrial health of this country in the years ahead. It must come as a great relief to us to know that just as we are approaching this critical state in our consumption of fuel, the possibility of an alternative source of energy has opened up before us.

Having said those words of well-deserved congratulation to the Authority and to the Government, I should like to ask a question which sounds grossly ungrateful. I hope that the mere asking of it will not make my right hon. Friend think that public opinion is only appeased to be whetted. It seems to the uninitiated, which must include nearly all of us on this subject, rather a long time before the first power station in the programme starts construction. Bearing in mind what I said earlier about the progress in the atomic energy stations since 1946, and how successful their planning has been in both timing and cost, I have no doubt that there are excellent reasons why so long a time must elapse before the first brick is laid for the first two stations. But I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether he can indicate today some of the reasons why the preparatory period of two and a quarter years from now before the actual start of construction cannot be shortened.

One might have thought that the experience from the other factories and the experience now being gained in construction at Calder Hall might have made it possible to cut down that preparatory period. I feel a little ungrateful in even asking the question, but the public, having once got over its surprise of finding that atomic energy was so close to us, has now turned round and is beginning to ask the Government, as public opinion always asks, Why so little and why so late?

One factor that will bear rather hardly upon the Atomic Energy Authority and the Government in this matter is the shortage of scientific manpower. There is at present a shortage of graduates in natural science and a shortage of men trained in what is now called technology. I have heard it said, with what truth I do not know, that the existing atomic programme including that contained in the White Paper, could absorb the total output of physics graduates from British universities for several years to come.

That, obviously, cannot be allowed to happen, if only because some of those graduates must themselves become teachers of science; and there are the other demands of industry. It seems, however, as though the scale of expansion of atomic development upon which we are now embarking will render even more acute than it has been in the past few years the shortage of graduates in mathematics and the natural sciences and of those skilled in the higher techniques of modern industry.

I hope that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues in the Government will bear this urgently in mind, as, I think, they are doing, and will try to expand the output from the universities and press on with their announced programme of expanding higher technological education. By no means the least important step is to try to interest boys at school in mathematics and in the natural sciences, so that they will seek qualifications in these subjects. There is great scope here for the secondary modern schools. It would revitalise those schools and give them a new sense of mission if they felt they were playing a considerable part in supplying the skilled scientific and technical manpower that the country will need to carry out its atomic programme in the coming decades.

The further programme outlined in paragraphs 32 to 35 of the White Paper is bound to be more provisional and is, indeed, almost speculative, because we must ascertain which type of reactor is most successful and how the various reactors show up relatively to each other. There must be a considerable margin of doubt, but, whichever set of assumptions in the White Paper is correct, and whatever view we choose to take of the market value of plutonium in the future, or of the other by-products of nuclear energy, it is quite obvious that electricity can be generated in this country on a vast scale from nuclear energy at a cost which will be comparable with that of the most efficient coal-powered stations. Therefore, I should like to ask my right hon. Friend one other question on which, I think, he can give us a reassurance, and that is, whether we have, in the Empire especially, in the sterling area especially, ample sources of the raw materials for this industry, uranium and thorium.

This is going to build up into a vast industry, and it is quite obvious that nearly all of its raw materials will be imported raw materials. We all want to see the industry developed, but we shall, of course, have to bear in mind that, as it develops and fills a huge role in the national economy, we shall be undertaking yet another of those standing liabilities of importing our basic materials, which will have to be paid for by continuing exports from this country. I believe that in the Empire, or in the sterling area, there are ample sources of uranium, but the White Paper mentions a period of only ten years. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will say a little about that when he replies to the debate.

Of course, we have to bear in mind that, if in one way we are building up our import liability, yet if we do not have this programme we shall almost certainly have to import perhaps as much as 30 million or 40 million tons of coal in replacement of it. So I do not know that any nett increase in the burden has really to be envisaged. Considering what is now virtually inevitable, that we shall have to import fuel on a massive scale, it may well be that the development of nuclear energy will lessen our standing import bill in the future, not increase it.

Now I would say a word on a matter which has always interested me particularly. We had a debate the other day about atmospheric pollution. In London, one of the difficulties is that whether we use solid smokeless fuel, in accordance with the wishes of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who has urged its advantages very successfully in this House for a very long time, or whether we have efficient burning appliances consuming anthracite or rely on supplies of electricity, we do not get over one problem, the pollution of the atmosphere by sulphurous fumes. [Interruption.] I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) is not suggesting that this House can supply any deficit of sulphurous fumes. However, there will be no sulphurous fumes from fission generators. They will provide energy without the atmospheric pollution that at present comes from coal-fired electric-power stations.

A word about safety, because there is a good deal of public anxiety about that. Of course, the power stations projected in the White Paper are perfectly safe. They are inherently safe, because if the moderator inside them does get overheated, if the process begins to go too fast, it stops itself. As I understand, if the fission products, the neutrons which are cast off during the process of fission and which carry on a chain reaction by themselves, producing new fissions, move too fast, they get caught up in the wrong thing—I hope that is a compendious way of putting it. They do not get caught up in the other atoms of fissile material, so that the chain reaction continues.

In other words, an atomic pile, the atomic reactors, cannot run away and turn into junior atomic bombs as some people seem to fear they may. They are inherently safe. I think that that should be emphasised, because a lot of public anxiety can work up over these things. We just cannot have an atomic power station blowing up—certainly, not any of the atomic power stations which are conceived of in any part of the present programme. They are inherently safe, and there is not the slightest reason why they should not be sited right in the middle of London, but I am glad that, in fact, as the White Paper makes clear, as the Lord President has made clear, merely in deference to very natural public opinion on the subject, they are not going to be created in the first instance in built-up areas.

For the present generation atomic energy is likely to remain a deus ex machina——

Mr. Norman Smith (Nottingham, South)

A what?

Mr. Bell

A god out of a machine.

Mr. Smith

Thank you.

Mr. Bell

Succeeding generations will take for granted what to us is unfamiliar and slightly worrying, so I think it is right to site the first dozen stations anyway out of the built-up areas, although the risk factor of atomic power stations is virtually nil.

The matter of the disposal of atomic waste has also aroused a lot of public attention. I think it should be said, as, I am sure, my right hon. Friend will reaffirm when he replies to the debate, there is no risk to the public from the disposal of atomic waste. There has been a lot of misunderstanding. I think some people were worried the other day because atomic waste was to be put into the sea off Land's End. The place chosen was 1,000 miles out in the Atlantic, in about 2,000 fathoms, and the waste was locked up in a lead coffin or something of the kind, and any fear of risk to human life in the British Isles was entirely fantastic and out of the question.

Naturally, there is almost bound at first to be some misunderstanding about these things, and it therefore should be said that the disposal of even the great and increasing volume of atomic waste that there will be will cause no serious trouble at all in the years that lie ahead. The treatment of the waste will not take place in the power stations but in processing factories which will be remote, and the disposal of the processed waste can be easily undertaken without any danger to the surrounding population.

I have congratulated the Government on the programme which they have put forward. I think they have an exceedingly difficult role to fill from now on. I am sure that the Atomic Energy Authority and the Government will discharge it successfully, but we have to remember that they have become statutory monopolists of atomic energy.

Mr. George Chetwynd (Stockton-on-Tees)

A very good thing, too.

Mr. Bell

We had a debate on monopolies yesterday, and it would be interesting to know what the view of the Opposition is on this.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Billericay)

The Opposition are divided.

Mr. Bell

They have fissionable minds, perhaps.

Atomic energy will become a prime national consideration for an industrial country. There is no doubt about that. It will become a major national consideration, and the Government have to be very careful from now on that their control of atomic energy is as imaginative, as flexible and as diversified as if it were wide open to the interplay of private enterprise and competition, if that end is possible of achievement, and in so far as it is. We must not sink into a rut. All the possibilities of the application of atomic energy must be explored and we must remain ahead of the rest of the world in the whole field.

I think there is no economic future immediately for nuclear propulsion. Possibly, there never will be a future for it in the case of the motor car, because the smallest reactor is very heavy, but there may well be a considerable future for atomic energy in marine propulsion. The fact that the United States is already operating an atomic energy powered submarine shows that where cost is not the prime factor one can already use nuclear energy for propulsion. Therefore, there is considerable scope for research there. Innumerable other possibilities also present themselves.

I turn now to a side of the subject which is even less well known publicly, but which interests me particularly because I have in my constituency an establishment which is principally concerned with it. It is the use of radioactive isotopes in all kinds of ways, in research, medicine and in industry. I am not a scientist by any means. When the natural sciences were being expounded at school, I did not always listen as carefully as I might have done, but I have tried to repair some of the omissions recently. An isotope, as I understand it, has the important characteristic that it is an atom of an element which behaves chemically in exactly the same way as all the other atoms of that element, but because the number of neutrons in its nucleus has been disturbed it behaves in a radioactive manner and emits ions.

The significance of these isotopes is that these atoms behave in precisely the same way chemically as any ordinary atom of that element and, therefore, the behaviour of these marked and traceable atoms is characteristic of the behaviour of the ordinary atoms of the elements, and by putting in a certain number of these marked particles one can trace what is happening during a process. Whether in the growth of a plant, the processes of industry or in the application of medicine, one can see things and trace a chain of events which one could not trace in any other way.

There are in use at present about 300 or 400 separate isotopes, of which about one-tenth are in common use either in medicine or in industry and there are, of course, innumerable chemical compounds of each of these isotopes. I do not think that there is much general knowledge of the way in which these radioactive isotopes can be used and I hope that I may be forgiven if I take a little of the time of the House in saying something about them. If I appear to be crying the wares of my own constituency, I am also drawing attention to a matter in which the public benefit would be advanced if more were known about it.

In medicine, for example, one can put radioactive isotopes into drink or food which can be taken by mouth and absorbed into various parts of the body where the isotopes can do a job which otherwise can only be done by surgical operation. If a patient drinks radioactive iodine it is differentially absorbed by the thyroid gland. It damps down the hyper-activity of that gland and relieves a condition which otherwise would necessitate a surgical operation and perhaps three weeks in bed after it.

That is one instance where these fusion products can be and are used day by day in the advancement of medicine. Another is the use of radioactive gold, which locates itself in tumours and allows treatment of cancer in parts of the body where otherwise surgical operation might be needed. There are many other instances, which I will not develop because my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay will deal with that aspect.

Outside medicine, these isotopes have a vast field of activity in industry and research. One can watch the growth of plants, for example, and one can follow the absorption of different substances in their growth. I heard of a very interesting experiment the other day in which the Rothamsted research station was trying to find out why bees are always turned away at the door of the hive if they do not belong to that hive. It is a matter which has been noticed for a long time and most of us have wondered about it. How do the guardian bees know whether it is one from their own hive that is coming to the door or a stranger? [An HON.MEMBER: "Or just another bee."] It was thought that the method of distinguishing was by scent, because it was possible that all the bees in the same hive shared each other's food.

That was the logical explanation, but how does one find experimentally whether the bees in the hive share each other's food? It would not be easy to do that without the use of radioactive isotopes. They gave to one marked bee a radioactive meal and put him back in the hive. Rothamsted scientists examined 350 bees, putting them under a radioactivity detector, and it was found that 345 out of 350 had been sharing the meal of the marked bee. It was, therefore, established that the guardian bees at the entrance of the hive are able to keep out intruders because inside the hive there is food sharing, with consequent identity of scent. That is a little example from biological research to show how these radioactive isotopes can do wonderful work.

They can be used to sterilise food and drugs, because radioactivity is sterilising; but their main use will be in industry in which they are of tremendous value. I want to say something about that, because the use of radioactive isotopes in industry is increasing rapidly and the proportion of export is very high. That is gratifying in itself. Fifty-four per cent. by value of the output of the radio-chemical centre at Amersham goes abroad. While that has its obvious attractions, there is a slight danger that in this as in so many other things British industry will lag behind the application of British fundamental research, and this is something which we should watch. The number of dispatches from the radio-chemical centres at Amersham and Harwell have gone up very substantially over the past years. They started in 1947. In round thousands, the centres first sent out two, then four, then seven and then 11, 13, 16 and last year 19,500 consignments of radioactive materials for use in industry and research. As much as 54 per cent. in value went abroad and only 46 per cent. were used in this country.

The United Kingdom is now the world's chief exporter of radioactive isotopes. I hope we shall maintain that position. We send them to over 40 or 50 different countries in all parts of the world and more than half of the deliveries from Amersham are by air. Obviously, we have established a commanding position for radioactive isotopes in the markets of the world and it is important that British industry should recognise how valuable these isotopes are for economy, cutting out processes and saving of costs, for testing, for standardisation and efficient marketing and for solving problems of production and even of industrial chemistry, which may be perplexing them.

The publicity about atomic development is mainly concentrated on the hydrogen and uranium bombs and that has created in the public mind a totally erroneous impression of the complexity, danger, and cost of using radio-active substances. First of all, complexity: use in an industrial process is extremely simple. May I give an example? Isotopes may be wanted for use in an oil pipeline to discover when the character of the oil going through the pipeline is changed. It may be necessary to turn off supply A and go on to supply B.

All that is done is that a few radioactive isotopes are injected into the second kind of oil and as it passes through the pipe it goes past a detector which indicates when the first of the new oil passes. Thus, it is known when we move from the first to the second kind of oil. That shows us how simple some of these processes are. From the point of view of safety, in most cases the amounts used are so minute owing to the high sensitivity of the detectors that no element of risk is involved and nearly all industrial use of radio-active isotopes is quite safe.

Thirdly, and perhaps most dramatic of all is the question of cost. Last year Amersham sent out 10,000 consignments of radioactive materials to industry and research. The average value of each dispatch from Amersham is £20 and for £5 one can get something very useful. I do not think that those facts are sufficiently well-known throughout the country and industry. The cost of instruments, like detectors and of the apparatus is usually a two-figure cost in pounds. The whole thing is immensely cheaper than is generally realised.

Then, of course, the processes which it replaces are usually much more complex and much more expensive. Radioactive isotopes are now being used for measuring the thickness of metal sheets, of plastics and of cardboard. I heard of a case recently where a British firm got a six-figure order for supplying a cigarette-making machine to the United States because it embodied in it a radioactive device for measuring the amount of tobacco which goes into each cigarette.

Of course, if the demand for these radioactive isotopes could expand, the cost would become very much less. They can have a considerable half life and they can be stored. "Half life" is the period during which the substance loses half its energy. It is a very convenient criterion when applied to radioactive substances. If it were applied to politics it might be highly embarrassing. But many of them are very short-lived, and they have to be manufactured specially for each order whereas, if the volume of orders were greater, they could be manufactured by machine systems and the cost would fall even below what it is at present.

I think I have said enough to show how vast is the scope of these substances for industry. At Amersham, and, I think, also at Harwell, there is a research and development section. All that industrial firms need to do is to send their problems and inquiries to those establishments and they will be told how and in what way they can use radioactivity in their industrial processes. What is needed is far greater awareness in British industry of the way in which it can be helped by the research and development section at Amersham.

There is a fabulous wealth of these radioactive substances and at the Centre they can make almost anything that anybody wants in the way of radioactive chemical compounds. I hope that industry will take full advantage of this possibility, and so strengthen the competitive power of the British economy by this wonderful new development and the opportunity which it throws open to us. I am sure that if only all the opportunities in the various fields which are thrown open can be made use of, the development of atomic energy will open wide vistas of material betterment to this generation and to that which will follow.

1.56 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Billericay)

I beg to second the Motion.

The whole House will want to join with me in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell), first of all on his good luck in the Ballot, secondly on his good sense in selecting this particular subject, and, thirdly, on the very considerable grasp he has shown in the course of his most interesting speech of this complex subject.

Speaking for myself, I think that the more we can learn about atomic energy and its consequences for our age the better, because there is some danger of technology leaping ahead so fast that even those of us who consider we are really informed may fail to grasp the full social and economic significance of the vast changes that are coming.

First of all, I think it is necessary to put the matter in perspective. It is not that nuclear power will replace coal in any conceivable time in the future; on the contrary, expanding industry in the next 20 or 30 years quite clearly is going to need more coal and not less. It is rather that its arrival providentially rescues our country from the inevitable decline which would follow a chronic and sustained coal shortage. As the House knows, the Ridley Report estimates that by 1960 our coal requirements will fall some 20 million tons short of what is necessary. It is a happy accident, I might almost describe it, that nuclear power has become a reality.

Nor should we forget that enormous advances are taking place in other directions, for example, in electronics and in microbiology. The frontiers of knowledge are being pushed back all the time, and at a faster rate than we have ever before experienced. It is this which is going to revolutionise our lives.

Take one aspect of nuclear science. My hon. Friend referred at some length to the use of radioactive isotopes. Few people seem to realise that a wonderful new tool has been put into the hands of industry and medicine. Radioactive isotopes are already used in a wide variety of processes in industry in checking and measuring the thickness and purity of a wide range of industrial products. Though as yet, and speaking as one who has a small connection with a variety of businesses, I would say that industry, notoriously slow to adapt itself to new ideas, has scarcely awakened to the fact that we now possess a means of reducing production costs and of increasing the quality of production.

In medicine it may well be that radioactive isotopes are now assuming a greater importance from the point of view of diagnosis than in clinical use. Two examples occur to me. The first is simple enough. Using the characteristic of radioactive isotopes, described so clearly by my hon. Friend, faulty circulation in a patient can now be discovered by injecting a radioactive salt solution into his blood stream. The solution courses round, and by applying detectors to parts of the patient's body it is possible to measure the time taken for the blood to circulate and to measure it against what is known to be normal. I am told that by this means it is possible now to locate the exact site of the constriction in the arteries caused by a thrombosis. Such techniques are adding immensely to medical science.

Then again, it is now possible to detect and to locate brain tumours, since isotopes fed into the patient's system tend to concentrate in the affected area and, by the application of detectors, it is thus possible to discover the site of the tumour. Some of us were privileged last week to visit the Royal Marsden Hospital at Chelsea and to see some of the inspiring work being done there by Professor Mayneord and his gifted team. Two aspects of the work there struck me as being immensely interesting and significant. The first was that an isotope technique has now been developed which takes the place of the old X-ray method of photographing obstructions or fractures in the body, without the use of mains electricity. One can see at once a range of new possibilities in both peace and war opening up.

The second aspect of the work which seemed to me to be significant was the investigation into the hazards which exist wherever radioactive substances are being handled. It is obvious that as nuclear power stations are erected, not only in this country but overseas, as the use of radioactive isotopes in industry and in the hospitals is extended, and as uses are found for radioactive wastes, so means must be found of minimising the effects of radiation or of alleviating those effects when they occur; otherwise we shall find a limitation being imposed upon what might otherwise be a considerable expansion. In employment in this field a great deal more needs to be known, but undoubtedly a wonderful vista of opportunities is opening up.

Nevertheless, it is important to recognise the limiting factors, and I want to address myself to that subject. Clearly, to design, build, operate the nuclear power plants and factories of the future, to export plant overseas and to operate, to service it there, to apply all these new techniques, will require more than an increasing supply of atomic physicists. We shall need more technologists, whom I would describe as people who can apply science in a creative and forward-looking way, and more technicians too, that is to say, people who apply science expertly in the ordinary day-to-day jobs of industry.

If we can find the men there is no limit to the possibilities. If we fail to find the men, then our knowledge goes for nought and the leadership in its application will pass to others. I emphasise that not one but many new industries are about to be born. To design and build the new power stations and new atomic factories, will require engineers of the highest calibre. To analyse, to separate, to purify the chemical compounds, to enrich uranium, to extract plutonium, to deal with radioactive by-products and to handle radioactive materials will call not just for more industrial chemists but industrial chemists of exceptional quality. To apply the new techniques to industrial processes will require managements not only with exceptional business drive, but with imagination of the highest order. The new age is already calling for a higher degree of skill and accuracy, especially in chemical and metallurgical processes, than we have ever known before.

If I may digress for a moment, it is this which makes it improbable that back- ward and under-developed countries are likely to be able to apply the new techniques rapidly, and so take a short cut to development—as some people seem to think is possible—precisely because they lack the industrial skills and the organisational capacity without which nuclear engineering on any scale cannot be undertaken. So I say at once that the main limiting factor is the availability of scientific manpower, not only for nuclear industry but for our industry as a whole.

The House knows well, because the matter has been discussed on numerous occasions, that despite an increase in the output of scientists since the war—an encouraging increase—expanding production and the increasing use of scientific techniques in industry have caused demand to outrun supply. The most alarming feature of all is the fact that future supply is jeopardised by the shortage of science teachers, particularly graduate teachers in the schools.

The matter has been well ventilated both in this House and outside, and the Seventh Annual Report of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy makes some interesting recommendations. I should have thought that the attack ought to be made on two fronts: firstly, by hook or by crook, we must attract more science teachers into the schools. Their status must be improved. I am ready to face the fact that we ought to pay them more if only as a simple investment in the future. I believe there are ways and means of attracting more science teachers into the profession. Secondly, I want to see graduates undertake more part-time work in industry.

Mr. M. Follick (Loughborough)

Does not the hon. Member agree that it is a shameful disgrace in modern civilisation that a comic actor who comes over here should be paid £10,000 a week, whereas a distinguished scientist of the highest calibre should have to struggle to get £2,000 a year?

Mr. Braine

Of course it is shameful, but that means that our values have to be adjusted, and that cannot be done in five minutes. One of the purposes of my hon. Friend's Motion is to bring to the attention of the nation the tremendous possibilities of nuclear power, but also the obstacles which stand in the way. We must also stop the present wastage of potential scientists among early school leavers. I shall not take the matter beyond that point, because time does not permit and many other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate.

There is, however, a second limiting factor of special application to our own country which I must mention. The Motion calls attention to the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and my hon. Friend has suggested certain lines of development. As the House well knows, however, in industry there is a very wide gap between the discovery of some new idea and its commercial application. Once an idea is recognised to have a possible commercial application it has to be worked out in practical terms; the pilot plant has to be built and experimental production entered into—research taking place at all stages—and between the recognition of the original idea and its commercial application a great deal of time and money must be spent and research undertaken.

We have all heard the complaint that while the quality of our fundamental research is as good as, and probably in advance of, that of the United States, somehow or other we always seem to fall behind in its application. That is unfortunately true. I notice that an American economist recently estimated that the United States benefits more from British fundamental research than Britain herself, and I think that is generally accepted—but have we ever bothered to ask ourselves why this is so?

I should be the first to recognise that the present Government have been giving generous aid to research of all kinds. I notice that in the current year £20.7million has been provided, as against only £13.4 million in 1950–51. That is an increase of 55 per cent. If one breaks down that figure and looks at the additional money provided for research in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food, one finds that the increase is of the order of 88 per cent. In addition to these figures, a very high proportion of the recurrent grants to the universities must be considered as money devoted to research. I should be the last person therefore to criticise the Government for not making sufficient funds available.

None of us knows how much money the Government devote to research on defence, although clearly a proportion of that research has a civilian application. Britain does not publish as many figures as the United States in this respect, but it is interesting to note that the total amount spent last year by the United States Government upon research of all kinds, including defence, was £750 million. That is vastly more than we are spending. I am well aware that we have to be careful in talking about money and research. Last year "The Times" suggested that industry might be prodigal of its research effort and manpower, and went on to say: For every inch won, there may be acres of waste. Research can become a vested interest in itself, can be undertaken for prestige rather than product, can be duplicated within the same industry, can be so 'pure' as to be purposeless, can give a yield hopelessly incommensurate with its effort. That is a perfectly fair observation. Nevertheless, the disparity between what we are spending upon research—especially in applied science—and what is being spent by the United States is very great.

A similar disparity exists in private industry. It is probably true that major British firms are spending between 2 per cent. and 3 per cent. of their turnover upon research, and that compares quite favourably with anything in the United States, but the point to bear in mind is that our market is very much smaller and the risk of undertaking research very much greater than it is in America. In my view, it is wrong to link research with turnover. We should look upon it as an investment for the future.

My own suggestion is that there must be a case for considering whether we ought not to redress the balance by devoting more Government resources to applied research and the dissemination of information than we are now doing. I have particularly in mind the closing words of the Seventh Annual Report of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy. It says: For now that the material fruits of Britain's past industrial greatness are no longer sufficient to carry us forward into the future, it becomes increasingly imperative to equip ourselves with new knowledge and new wealth. In doing so it is inevitable that we shall have to turn increasingly to science, for in a world which becomes more and more competitive, science constitutes one of the few instruments we have for attaining success and security. There is certainly a strong case for looking again at the way in which finance is provided for medical research in such matters as radiation sickness. As my hon. Friend mentioned, it is quite clear that the existing hazards to health are a limiting factor to development. There is little doubt that the budgets of the Medical Research Council and the Ministry of Health—which, after all, have to deal with a very wide field—are stretched to the uttermost.

I speak solely for myself when I say that financial help should be given directly to help this very special and expensive research. But certainly nobody would have expected the British Electricity Authority to have found the means of nuclear power development, but organisations such as the Ministry of Health are having to carry this additional burden. I think I am right in saying that in the United States the Atomic Energy Commission finances medical research upon a very large scale. It may be, as "The Times" suggests, that it is doing it too lavishly, but there is a happy medium, and I am not at all convinced that we have attained it.

Atomic energy has given our country a new lease of life, but if we are to take the fullest advantage of it it is imperative to secure the maximum Commonwealth co-operation. I can never think of this country in isolation; I can think of it only in terms of the hub and heart of a great Commonwealth system. Happily a great deal of co-operation already exists, and there is a considerable exchange of ideas and information. There is a constant coming and going of Commonwealth scientists. It is remarkable how many South Africans, Australians. New Zealanders and Canadians are here, and how many Britons are in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. We are getting very well mixed together.

It is also true that Commonwealth scientists have contributed in very large measure to the success of our own nuclear energy progress. I would say too that the existing scientific liaison service is not only filling an extremely important gap, but is a model for a wider Commonwealth service. Nevertheless, when we are considering Commonwealth countries either as suppliers of raw materials—I am thinking not only of uranium and thorium—but of all the other minerals which are called for in the new nuclear age—or as potential markets for the goods which we can produce in this country, there are three considerations which we ought to bear in mind.

The first is—and I regret that this is so—that strategic interest has tended to pull the overseas Dominions towards the United States. The second consideration is—and the Paley Report gives a pretty clear indication of it to anyone who cares to read it—that if the United States economy is to expand at its present prodigious rate it must look increasingly to sources of supply of raw materials from overseas, and particularly from the sterling area. In sheer self-defence the United States economic policy will be framed to ensure that it has access to all the raw materials that are necessary to it.

The third consideration is that the United States capacity in the atomic field will obviously be much greater than our own in time. Against this we have the undoubted advantage of Commonwealth goodwill plus the fact that, at the moment, we have a slender lead in the application of the new knowledge to peaceful industrial purposes.

I pray that everything humanly possible will be done to ensure that we maintain that lead and to ensure that we intensify Commonwealth co-operation in this and in every other possible field, so as to enable our people to reap the rewards which the inspired genius of our scientists has brought, providentially, within our reach.

2.22 p.m.

Mr. George Chetwynd (Stockton-on-Tees)

I should like to congratulate the hon. Members for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell)and Billericay (Mr. Braine) not only on the choice of subject, which is of world-wide importance, but on the manner in which they have moved it this afternoon. It is even more important when we consider that next week on Tuesday and Wednesday the over-riding topic of our debate will be the hydrogen bomb, which is the very antithesis of what we are discussing this afternoon. It is rather tragic that today so few hon. Members are here to debate the peaceful use of atomic energy when, next week, the Chamber will probably be full of hon. Members discussing its powers for potential destruction.

There was only one point where I think the doctrinaire approach of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South led him into difficulty. That was when he was seeking to defend that private enterprise should be let loose at some stage in the development of nuclear energy. I cannot think of any other sources which should be more debarred from private enterprise than that particular one. I think that the tribute which he paid in the rest of his speech was a remarkable testimony to the success of public service and of public enterprise in this sphere.

Mr. R. Bell

I do not want the hon. Gentleman to misunderstand me. I was only pointing out the very special nature of the responsibility which lies upon the Government because they have to take upon themselves all the responsibilities for the diversification which otherwise would be taken by so many others.

Mr. Chetwynd

I accept that, but we are all very proud of the part played by British skill in this endeavour under public control, public initiative and public enterprise. This is a matter not only for us in this country, but for the world as well.

I was pleased to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for Billericay about the part which the Commonwealth can and must play in this development. Peace was once supposed to be indivisible and I should have thought that the peaceful uses of nuclear energy are also indivisible and that we cannot confine their good uses to this country of any section of the population as a whole.

The whole of our efforts should be devoted towards seeing the widest possible spreading of the benefits which can come from the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. I do not want to be technical—indeed, I cannot be technical—and I was interested to hear the explanation given by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South, which seemed to be remarkably clear. I think that it will be sufficient, for my purpose, having tried to understand what all this is about if I just say that we have now found an alternative source of heat energy by which we can drive our electric generating plant.

I do not want to go into the question of protons, neutrons, electrons and all the rest of it. My scientific knowledge was gained merely by putting iron filings into Bunsen burners, and that did not take me very far. I think that we have to find the alternative sources of power which will supplement our existing sources at the time we most need it, and at a time when our resources, during the next thirty or forty years would be seriously inadequate to maintain our industrial production and our exports and keep our place in the world.

It is most opportune at this time, when we are seeing the beginning of this large-scale development of atomic energy, that there should be this extra source of power. We have been very profligate in our uses of our energy in the past in this country. I do not know what the sources of atomic energy throughout the world will be, but I think that we shall have to be very careful how we used them for the benefit of mankind because, otherwise, we shall be negating some of the progress which we have already made.

There are some questions to which the Minister will have to find answers. One has been touched upon already. That is the question of the supply of trained personnel. We would all wish to know from him exactly what steps are to be taken to see that so far as is humanly possible we shall have trained people to carry on this progress not only at the highest level—because I think they will come from the universities and there is an attraction in this which will induce people regardless of awards—but also lower down the scale, where we shall need technicians and technologists to do this job.

Mr. Follick

Some will come from Loughborough College.

Mr. Chetwynd

I know that some will come from there and from all the other technical institutions and colleges throughout the country. But when we think of the competing demand which there is for this kind of personnel throughout the country today and the priority which we must give to meet nuclear energy science we may have to take some extra special step to attract them into that sphere.

We shall have to face the fact sooner or later—and the sooner the better—that we shall have to provide a more scientific training in school than is being given today. We have to be ready to give teachers of science greater monetary value than teachers of some other subjects. We want to get them into the schools, because these are the places where we must have them to teach science and physics to the sixth forms. We must compete with industry, which is prepared to pay large sums to attract the very same people who should be teaching in our institutions.

Perhaps some of the people now engaged in the nuclear energy field could go back for a certain time of the year into universities and technical colleges to impart their information to students and encourage them to come along. It will not do for us to shut our eyes at the fact that in a few years' time we shall not have adequate trained personnel unless special steps are taken to keep up the impetus.

My second question to the Minister concerns the spread over ten years, during which time it is estimated that the investment will, roughly, be £300 million. Is that enough? Are we giving enough of our national investment to this all-important subject? To devote £300 million over ten years is an average of £30 million a year, which seems a very small sum to provide for what we want. I would have thought that out of our vast investment programme it would be wise to give an added amount to this work.

I am a little disturbed at the time it is estimated to take before the proposed power stations come into operation. Perhaps it is wise of the Government to be a little cautious in fixing the time, and they may surprise us later by the speed of development. It may take only half the time before the stations come into operation. When will the experimental stations now in existence be producing power for the national grid? Will it be in one year, or have we to wait a longer time? Is it possible to convert existing power stations working on the ordinary coal or oil-fired processes to nuclear energy as an experiment, without radically re-designing them or pulling the places down? If so, we may save a considerable amount of time and money.

On the question of co-operating with other people, I remember asking, as a supplementary question to the Prime Minister about two years ago, whether it would not be wise to co-operate by giving some of our information on the peaceful uses of atomic energy to the United States. A cold shudder went through the House of Commons, and the Prime Minister did not seem very anxious to take up the point. That attitude seems to have changed considerably. We now have no wish to conceal our knowledge from the United States and from other countries, and I welcome the fact that that change has come about.

Considerable interest has been shown in the supply of raw material to carry on the work. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can indicate the amount and the sources of supply, and whether he is satisfied that we have adequate arrangements, by pooling resources in the world, to see that not only our own developments go on but those in the Commonwealth and in the world at large. That brings me to Commonwealth co-operation. I noticed that one of the subjects discussed at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting was the peaceful use of atomic energy. It seemed that very fruitful co-operation was arrived at in what is going on in Australia, Canada, India and South Africa. I would ask the Minister for a little more information about the effect of that co-operation on our production at home.

President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" plan is one of the most imaginative gestures of all time, and is perhaps equal to the Marshall Plan gesture. It was bogged down for a little while with procedural difficulties, but there seems to be a prospect of the plan getting under way, with the conference which, I believe, is to be held some time in 1955. I make a plea that we should have the widest information on the use of atomic energy for peace. There should be no veil of secrecy surrounding it. We should have international co-operation covering research, the supply of raw materials and an interchange of information of all kinds regarding health, welfare, safety, production, and so on.

One other point causes anxiety. How is this section of the capital investment programme being fitted in with all the other programmes that have been announced recently? There is the plan for modernising railways, and plans for roads, housing, and hospitals. The plan for atomic energy should have complete priority in all this development. Do the Government con- sider that they have enough manpower, technical skill and material to do the job, and to give it the priority that it deserves?

If we make the wrong use of atomic and nuclear power we are faced with the prospect of quickly going back to the dark ages. A right use of atomic power can bring about a new era of peace and prosperity, and a chain reaction for the benefit of humanity. That is a challenge to our statesmanship and common sense, and I hope that in our debates today and next week our common sense will prevail.

2.38 p.m.

Mr. James Ramsden (Harrogate)

The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) and, as I recall, his right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), when commenting on the statement made a week or two ago on this subject, agreed that it represented a great triumph for the work of public enterprise.

This is not a subject on which we want to make party points, but it is fair to say that this field is probably unique in that private enterprise has a great share in the success, in the sense of having manufactured components on time. Reference has already been made to contracts which have been carried out right on time. Indeed, some of them appear to be running a little ahead of time. Possibly the hon. Member represents a good many people who work in large private-enterprise concerns intimately concerned in this field; but I do not want to pursue this point further.

I am glad of the chance to say a few words in support of this Motion. My excuse for troubling the House is that last week I was lucky enough, at the invitation of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works, to go on a tour of some of these factories in the North-west.

I will begin by saying a word or two about the numerous members of the staffs of these factories who took such immense trouble to make this trip a success. As far as many of us were concerned—and I speak mainly for myself, though also, perhaps, for some others on this side of the House—they were showing round a completely untechnical and unscientific party of people, absolute laymen in this field, who were not even capable of rising to the height to which my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) rose at one moment in his speech, which I thought was very high indeed.

I have no doubt that, in regard to some of the things which they showed us, we were incapable of understanding them through a lack of background, and, indeed, some of the questions which we put to them may not have seemed particularly intelligent. In spite of that, I am sure that the trip was very well worth while, not only for us, but possibly also for some of the staff as well, if only as a kind of exercise in public relations.

We hear it said often enough that seeing is believing, and that is quite true. It is one thing to read about this development in a White Paper or to hear it discussed in this House, but it is quite another to see what is actually being achieved on the spot. I think that I am speaking for all hon. Members of the delegation from both sides of the House—and I do not think that the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. F. Anderson) will dissent—when I say that we came away completely convinced of the wisdom and boldness of my right hon. Friend in giving to this industry the signal to go ahead. We were equally convinced that the men to whom the job has been given fully justify the confidence of my right hon. Friend in them.

I wish to follow up the idea of public relations, and I hope that this will not, by any means, be the last of such visits which my right hon. Friend may be able to arrange. To build up a good atmosphere of public relations is very important to this industry, as indeed to all industries. At the moment—partly because the Press, for obvious reasons, does not have full scope in relation to this industry—it seems to me that this field of enterprise is perhaps to many people rather unknown, and, as it were, remote. The public need more knowledge, which, in its turn, will breed more confidence, which, perhaps, though inadequately enough, Members of Parliament who see these things may be able in the course of their travels round the country to supply.

One of the main values of the White Paper—coming as it did coincident with our visit—and of this debate today, is that the publicity which is given to the peaceful development of atomic energy comes at a most opportune time. People's minds have certainly been disturbed, as it is right they should be, by the prominence hitherto given to the military uses of atomic energy, and all this will help to restore a healthy balance.

I think I noticed this feeling among some of those to whom we talked at the factories. In many ways, they have a lonely job, and I should think that working on atomic energy, especially on the military side, can be a very difficult job for a sensitive man. I believe that they welcome the feeling that the whole thing is beginning to be seen more in perspective, and they have realised, as we have, that we could not possibly have had this tremendous and beneficial development on the civilian side but for the imperative demands of the military side. The whole of this development works in together, and I am sure that this should be said and realised.

Then there is the question, which is also one largely of public relations, of the element of safety in these plants, and a matter to which reference has already been made. I am glad to see that it is so fully dealt with in the White Paper. Obviously, it will be of even more concern if and when stations are sited in more closely-populated areas than is, the case at the moment, but it is of very great importance now to people who live near and who work in these plants. The White Paper, at the bottom of page 8, says this: The first important thing to recognise is that it is impossible for an atomic explosion to take place in a power reactor. Speaking for myself, the force of those words was very keenly brought home to me as I stood the other day on the top of an atomic pile at Windscale. I think we all realised that it is very important, and if I lived in Cumberland I should certainly want to have that said. I am glad that it has been said authoritatively.

Next, there is the question of what comes out of the chimneys. Here again, the apprehensions which exist about the chimneys on the site of an atomic pile are, I think, due to strangeness and un-familiarity with the technique. Until the advent to this House of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), we all thought that the right and proper function of a chimney was to smoke, and everybody expected a chimney to smoke, certainly outside and possibly inside as well.

These chimneys do not smoke, and that is what upsets the people, because they wonder what, in fact, they are doing. What they do is emit air, and that air, by the time it reaches a place where anybody can breathe it, is just the same as any other air anywhere else, and probably rather better than some. We were shown conclusively that anybody living within twenty miles of Windscale, either inland or even on a boat at sea, could write to the safety officers and ask, "What about the air where I live and which I have to breathe? Is it all right?" Such a person would be shown the result of a test which was conducted within a very few miles of the spot in which he was interested, and which had proved satisfactory. I think that that is important.

Needless to say, the health precautions inside these factories are just as stringent, and the House will be glad to know that they were rigorously applied to the delegation. Protective clothing is always worn and often changed. Indeed, we were reminded of the occasion when a gentleman chose, as part of his epitaph, the words: Tired of all this buttoning and unbuttoning. This meticulous care will, of course, obviate the need for any epitaphs in future, and it is important that it should be scrupulously observed.

Two questions arise, one from our visit and one from the White Paper, and perhaps my right hon. Friend may like to comment on them. The first question is about the staff, and the position of the staff in these projects has been mentioned by almost every speaker today. I think that some of us have wondered particularly about the younger employees at Windscale. I mean those who are in the research laboratories, and who are, I think, graded as assistant experimental officers. I suppose that there is a fairly good presumption that these young men and women will have a good career before them in this industry, if they want it, and if they show themselves to be quite capable.

Some of us then wondered whether, outside the ordinary routine experimental research work which they do during the day they have adequate facilities for further training outside. If they have not it might be a wise provision for the future to make such facilities available. I gathered that some of them at present make their way from their hostel to Whitehaven to attend technical classes. That may be enough, but perhaps more should be done to provide a more specialised course nearer at home.

There might also be examined the related fact that in that part of the country there is the quite unusual situation for young trainees in industry that they find themselves plumped down in the middle of the countryside a long way not only from their homes but from the town interests and pursuits to which most of them are no doubt accustomed. They probably adapt themselves to it, but it is a novel situation for them.

The second point arises from paragraphs 39 to 41 of the White Paper which deals with the international aspects of commercial atomic power. There we read: Physicists and engineers from a number of countries have taken the opportunity of learning nuclear technology by attending schools and courses in this country such as the Reactor and Isotopes Schools at Harwell. So far as resources permit we intend to provide further facilities for nationals of other countries to attend these schools. Other countries will also be helped to build experimental and development reactors which are an essential preliminary to the building of commercial reactors. We are already helping in this way a number of Commonwealth and European countries. How soon do we expect to earn something substantial from the extension of these and similar facilities? I realise that many of those coming here have useful experience which we can share and from which we can gain. I realise, also, that in the long run it is probably profitable to us to take the Biblical advice: Cast thy bread upon the waters: and, by giving some information for nothing, build up a future market for our technological skill and products. It would be interesting to hear when it is likely to be possible to reap definite financial benefit from these vast potentialities—and they are vast—for export earnings, both visible and invisible, which have become possible through the outstanding lead we have established as a result of the Government's bold initiative in this important field.

2.54 p.m.

Mr. M. Follick (Loughborough)

It is with some pleasure that I intervene, because in my constituency we have a famous college—Loughborough Technological College. Just over seven years ago, from the benches opposite, I recommended that we should give far more attention to the development of science and science teachers than we were then giving, or are even now giving. If we have not the science teachers we cannot have the pupils; if we have not the pupils we cannot have the students; and if we have not got the students we cannot get the scientists.

We have reached a high degree of scientific development in the world of atomic energy, but as atomic development expands we shall want more and more scientists, chemists and physicists. We shall want them more perhaps than we shall want clerks and shop assistants. Short as we are of most raw materials, it is important that we should develop one thing which we have got, and that is a talent for science.

In America, were is not for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it is very doubtful if the atomic bomb would have come into being when it did. I do not say that that has been a blessing—it may be a curse—but with the atomic bomb came great atomic and nuclear developments. Those developments were largely due to M.I.T. I have urged here that Loughborough College should be developed on the same basis as M.I.T. It should be a central technological institute for the whole Commonwealth. To take full advantage of these new developments, we must have a centralised institute where young scientists from all over the Commonwealth—India, Canada, Australia and the rest—can obtain the highest degree of further nuclear technical knowledge. It was I who was principally responsible for getting the name of the Loughborough College of Engineering changed to Loughborough Technological College.

Time is very short. Now that the Germans are coming back into their own they will be pushing ahead with nuclear development. They were very far ahead of anyone else. If we do not develop this new science we shall be outpaced. When the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) spoke of giving adequate pay to our scientists, I intervened to say that I thought it a shame that the comic actor Danny Kaye should come here and be paid £10,000 for a week when Pontecorvo was paid only £1,500 a year.

The Minister of Works (Mr. Nigel Birch)

Much too much.

Mr. Follick

Say what one will, he was of the foremost mathematicians in the world and we do not know whether or not his reason for abandoning this country was to go to one where scientists are better looked after. I have been in Russia three times and have been astounded at the civic position accorded to scientists there. We cannot say that £1,500 a year for one of the finest mathematicians in the world is adequate pay, and we must forget this idea that entertainment should be very richly rewarded whereas science should be neglected, because unless we pay the scientists well, we shall have no science.

We should bear in mind the problems, today, of high taxation, the difficulties of gaining a livelihood, the difficulties of a man bringing up his children and educating them well. He may not be able to leave them a fortune; instead, he may have to give them the wherewithal, which is worth more than a fortune. Unless we make it possible for scientists to do these things, this country will be perennially short of the scientists we require.

Let us forget this idea that all teachers must be paid the same. The scientist is a special sort of teacher who is absolutely necessary to this country, not merely for the development of the country but for its very existence. If we do not pay these teachers enough we shall not get them, for they will go into other walks of life.

I appeal to the House to give this matter careful consideration. The scientist is a very valuable person, essential to the existence of this country. Let us pay him well. Let us pay him what he deserves to be paid. Let us see that he gets the finest college in the world. I know that it will be difficult to get an M.I.T., because Eastman, the Kodak man, left the whole of his fortune to M.I.T. He was a bachelor. I believe he left them 50 million dollars. We cannot expect that, but we can expect the Government to come forward with 50 million dollars or £50 million. If they cannot give all of that to Loughborough, at least they could give a satisfactory amount to Loughborough which would establish in this country an institution for the study of nuclear development which would be the envy of the world.

3.2 p.m.

Mr. Airey Neave (Abingdon)

I join with hon. Members who have congratulated my hon. Friends the Members for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) and Billericay (Mr. Braine) on their excellent speeches. They have put the subject in the right perspective and have done great service by bringing their knowledge of the peaceful use of atomic energy before the House.

The hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Follick) mentioned the peace-time use of atomic energy in Germany. As hon. Members know, that is the subject of an undertaking given by Dr. Adenauer in an exchange of letters which has just taken place, but I agree with the hon. Member that this is a point which should be kept constantly under review.

Several hon. Members present will remember having taken part in the first debate on the Atomic Energy Authority Bill, as it then was, a year ago, and I think it is fair to say that few of us here then visualised the great steps which have been taken since and the tremendous advancements in the planning of full-scale generation of atomic electricity which have taken place. At that time we were all very anxious that certain assurances should be given to the staffs, and I raised that matter with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works in an Adjournment debate a fortnight ago. I am glad to say that, as far as I know, the assurances which he then gave show that progress has been made towards a solution of many of the staff problems about which some of us were worried at that time.

But this bold and imaginative step which has been taken—first, through the building of experimental power stations by the Atomic Energy Authority, and, secondly, in the building of atomic power stations by the British Electricity Authority—has, of course, given rise to a point made by more than one hon. Member—for instance my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South and the hon.

Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd)—that it will take a great deal of time and cost a great deal of money. I think that point is fairly and frankly dealt with in paragraph 52 on page 12 of the White Paper, part of which reads: New technical developments that cannot at present be foreseen may perhaps lead to a more rapid improvement in the performance of stations than has been assumed. If so, we should be in a good position to take advantake of such developments. On the other hand, the provisional programme may turn out to be too optimistic: the stations may take longer to design and to build; they may cost more; the amount of development work needed may have been under-estimated. The point is properly made that at this stage we cannot say very precisely how long this programme will take to develop and what new technical discoveries may result which will mean either that the programme will go faster or that we shall encounter difficulties.

Mr. Arthur Palmer (Cleveland)

Will the hon. Gentleman agree that it takes about four years to build a power station in these days?

Mr. Neave

The hon. Member is quite right. We may encounter unusual difficulties with atomic power stations which have not yet been foreseen.

There is a part of this great new area of research which, as the White Paper modestly said, we have not yet been able to discover. I do not think it is a proper criticism to say that it is going to take too long at this stage. It is, however, a very inspiring plan and I think it has heartened many doubters and faint-hearts as to the future of our country. With the co-operation of industry of all kinds, public and private, this new Atomic Energy Authority may bring great well-being to our people.

Coming to a practical point and a practical question arising out of it, I ask whether the Minister can tell us what is to be the future of the Isotope and Reactor School, at Harwell, where representatives of industry from all over the world are being taught the mysteries of atomic energy? I do not know whether they understand those mysteries as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South, who told us a great many things which would have interest even for the most expert chemical engineer and physicist. How many are attending the School. How long are the courses? Are they paying for them? What are the financial arrangements?

Another point which has been touched upon by other hon. Members is the question of safety. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Ramsden) mentioned, with other hon. Members from both sides of the House he has visited various atomic stations, as I have. We have been very much impressed with the amount of safeguards we discovered, the amount of protective clothing we were expected to put on, and the tests which were applied for monitoring the amount of radioactivity which might be in us when we left the factory. But I did not agree with my hon. Friend that the remarks in the White Paper are adequate on this point. There are only three paragraphs relating to safety and I should like to see more publicity given to that subject.

There is a feeling among people who, somewhat naturally, have been obsessed by fear of the military use of and danger from nuclear explosions that harm may result from these factories. That fear arises from not knowing some of the important facts we have heard today and which are told us by the White Paper. For instance, the phrase referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate that "it is impossible for an atomic explosion to take place in a power reactor" ought to be published very widely and made very clear. I mention that because, like other hon. Members, I have visited various atomic sites and Harwell is in my constituency. I do not see why the widest publicity should not be given to these matters.

It is also very important that the public should know the extent of precautions for the protection of atomic workers, that constant vigilance is exercised, and safety is complete when it is exercised. The workers have less danger from radiation than in some respects workers in other industries have from burns, scalds, cuts, bruises, and so forth. That is a matter with which perhaps the Minister might deal.

I understand that at Harwell there has been no serious accident to any of the workers involving radiation in the whole history of the project. How far that applies elsewhere, I do not know, but it is a matter about which the public ought to know. Since this project is an inspiration to us all, surely some of these anxieties could now be cleared up and details of the work of the health physics and medical divisions in the atomic factories should be revealed.

Welcoming, as I do, the assurances which have already been given to the atomic energy staffs on housing and other matters, I end by reminding the House of the issues which have been raised by other hon. Members and of the field in which my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is in the van. This country's urgent need for coal has meant that the great discovery of atomic energy has come just in time. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster has described it as a second Industrial Revolution. He may well be right. Therefore I, like other hon. Members, am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham, South and Billericay for the way in which they have moved and seconded the Motion today. In doing so, they have made a great contribution to public understanding of the whole question.

3.12 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey (Sunderland, North)

I join the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) in congratulating the hon. Members for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) and Billericay (Mr. Braine) on promoting this very useful discussion. Politically, I am much encouraged by the warm enthusiasm they show for public enterprise. I hope that this is not to be regarded by their political colleagues as deviation, but as a sign of reform in political thinking in the Conservative Party.

We have to admit, on both sides of the House, that the development of atomic energy could have taken place only through public enterprise. It is unrealistic to make political capital, as Conservatives often endeavour to do, about the disadvantages of public enterprise when we have had such a debate as we have had today, extolling the virtues of public enterprise in a new field of development. But I do not wish to introduce political discord into this discussion, save, perhaps, also to note that the ebullience of hon. Members opposite seems to have diminished since the statement made yesterday by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

I should like the Minister to tell us what effect that statement will have upon the atomic energy programme. It is quite obvious that the Chancellor's statement will affect capital investment. I should have thought that it was the will of all sides of the House that this programme should not be affected and that it should, as everyone has urged, be a top priority.

I pass now to one or two questions arising from the White Paper, which is written with imagination and boldness and is very encouraging to have come from a Conservative Government. My first question is one in which I have a local interest. The White Paper makes it clear—I do not know what strength there is in the suggestion of hon. Members who say that progress could be expedited—that the construction of two gas-cooled graphite moderated stations will be started in about mid-1957. I should like to know when we may expect a statement about their location.

It is quite obvious, on practical grounds, that a decision must have been taken, or must very shortly be taken. We in the North-East believe that we ought to get one of these stations. I dare say that people in other parts of the country think the same——

Mr. Birch

They certainly do.

Mr. Willey

—but I have been unable to get any information from Lord Citrine. Therefore, I am trying the right hon. Gentleman. If the programme is envisaged in the terms put forward in the White Paper, a decision about location must be made soon, and I hope the Minister can say when an announcement is to be made. Clearly, these stations must be co-ordinated with the construction of other power stations now proceeding.

Secondly, particularly as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power is present, I should like the right hon. Gentleman to say something about the relation of the development of atomic energy to the coalmining industry. This should be explained, and on both sides of the House we should do what we can to make the position clear. The coalmining industry, as the Parliamentary Secretary appreciates, is a communal industry. A coal miner lives in a community of coal miners. For that reason he very properly takes a long-term view of his industrial prospects.

It is clear, as I read the White Paper, that there is no slackening in the demand for coal, and that coal will remain a high priority, and almost top priority, for as long as we can foresee, but the coalmining industry is one which has had an unfortunate history of uncertainty and unsettlement, and it depends on a community of people who devote themselves to a very uncongenial, hard task, and so I hope that the Government and all of us will emphasise, and continue to emphasise, the importance of the coalmining industry, because this is, as I see it, of absolute importance. If there were any feeling that the coalmining industry was only relatively important, or that its importance had been lessened, that would affect the coalfields immensely.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. L. W. Joynson-Hicks)

I think the hon. Gentleman is overlooking but will recall the fact that the Minister of Fuel and Power made the position very clear when he announced the content of the White Paper in reply to a Question by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles).

Mr. Willey

I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I appreciate what the Minister said. What I am emphasising is the importance of making the value of the coalmining industry understood throughout the country, particularly in such regions of the country as Durham, where part of the coalfield is becoming redundant, although the other part, of course, is becoming of increasing importance.

I wish thirdly to emphasise what almost every hon. Member who has spoken in the debate has remarked, and that is the importance of giving high priority to technical and scientific education, and the importance of its application. It was, I think, the hon. Member for Billericay who spoke particularly of that. It is in this regard that we are, as is generally conceded, behind the United States, and possibly behind the Soviet Union. The development of Calder Hall is very encouraging. I remember meeting some of the distinguished physicists who came back from the States after the war, and being very impressed by what they said. namely, that "This is a field of research which is peculiarly British, and nuclear research depended upon British fundamental research." But we were not in a position to develop it, and if we had not gone to the United States it would not have been developed as it has been. The Soviet Union, too, has been able to place enormous resources to helping the backroom boys.

I know the difficulties about this. I would be the last one to try to interfere with academic research and academic education, but I think there is a case for argument here. I would not go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Follick). When we talk about education we have to talk cautiously. I do not welcome a technocracy. If we are evaluating teaching, we should still place a high value on culture and moral teaching. However, we have to realise that we are living in a changing and a competitive world, and we have to see that we are as well equipped as we possibly can be to live in it, and the best way to secure ourselves is by developing high skills.

There is another point that has been made, particularly by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Abingdon, and I want only to emphasise it. A good deal of—I hesitate to use the word "propaganda"—of information must be given about safety in the development of atomic energy, because there is much needless fear, which is aggravated of course by the atomic bomb. There is an association in people's minds between atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the atomic bomb, and so there is fear, which is needless because the development of atomic energy for peaceful uses is a different thing from the development of the atomic bomb. I am not criticising anyone. All the people who have been concerned have made it abundantly clear Chat there is not the danger that in some quarters is supposed to exist, but it is necessary to make the information available. It was for that reason that I hesitated to use the word "propaganda." We want to be as well informed as we can be about this development.

Finally, I should like to say a few words on the rather controversial subject with which I began. It is quite clear that the Government have issued a large number of programmes, some of which are possibly window-dressing because there may be a General Election fairly soon—one never knows. Be that as it may, it is clear that if we have all these vast schemes of capital development we must have priorities. That is the language of Socialism. We must have a good deal of Socialism from the present Government if we are to proceed with these developments in an orderly way. I would support the plea that in the list of priorities atomic energy development must rank very high indeed, possibly as a top priority. We must see that in this initial stage of the new world that is opening before us Britain is in the lead.

3.21 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer (Cleveland)

I have been taken a little by surprise at the speed with which this debate was begun today. I thought that there would have been enough aviators and medical men in the House to keep discussion going on the other Motions for quite a time before we reached this question of nuclear power. Like other hon. Members, I am also very grateful to the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) and the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) for providing us with this valuable and interesting discussion.

Last week, I had the pleasurable experience with other hon. Members on both sides of the House of visiting the industrial division of the Atomic Energy Authority. I went to Capenhurst, Spring fields, Windscale, and, most interesting of all to me, because I am interested in the electrical power industry, to the Calder Hall plant. We were very well looked after in the austere Civil Service tradition which apparently still persists in the counsels and organisation of the Atomic Energy Authority.

Two distinct impressions remain in my mind. The first was the extreme youth and enterprise of those who were in charge. The men who took us round were in their 30s and early 40s, and we were all vastly impressed by their energy and enthusiasm. Another impression that remains with me is that here was a tremendous tribute to public enterprise. I do not think that anyone, even the most extreme hon. Member opposite, can say after visiting the Windscale plant that public planning and enterprise is incapable of wrestling successfully with industrial problems of this kind.

I should like to say something about the development of nuclear energy for electrical power purposes. When we were discussing the Bill, which is now the Atomic Energy Act, I was fairly persistent in suggesting that the British Electricity Authority should be brought into the matter at a high level and that there should be men from the electrical industry serving on the Atomic Energy Authority. I feel that the publication of the Government White Paper is a justification of that point of view.

I disagree a little with my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd), who seemed to suggest that we should confine the peaceful development of nuclear energy entirely to public enterprise. I am all in favour of public enterprise taking the initiative and having the primary responsibility. But if we want to move away quickly from the use of nuclear energy for the sole purposes of war to the wider purposes of peace, we must accept the economic system that we find here today. That means, I think, bringing in many private enterprise firms to play their part in the development of nuclear energy for general industrial use. For instance, the British Electricity Authority in the years ahead must of necessity use private contractors for the construction of the nuclear power stations, and I do not see that private contractors can be used properly unless they are given information about nuclear energy techniques.

I am glad that the British Electricity Authority is to have the ownership and operate the new nuclear power stations. It will mean that these will become a normal part of the public utility development of, this country.

I disagree with the suggestion made by one hon. Member opposite to the effect that nuclear power stations would necessarily be more complicated, needing a high level of technique to operate them. It may very well be that there will be engineers who will find a nuclear power station a relatively simple thing to operate once some of the outstanding technical questions have been overcome. There are difficulties about temperatures and pressures, and in that connection I might put a point to the Minister if he has available the technical advice which will enable him to answer it now.

The type of reactor which is used at Calder Hall uses uranium in its solid form, and that limits the temperature at which the pile can be operated, because solid uranium must be contained in a particular type of aluminium casing. I understand that in the United States of America they are making progress in the development of a rather different type of reactor which uses uranium in some kind of solution form. I shall be interested to know if we are pressing ahead with that type of reactor, because that is more likely to be found in the power stations of the future, I imagine, than the reactors which are now being erected at Calder Hall, which follow on the models of those at Windscale immediately adjoining.

It has been put to me that it might be convenient if I sat down in a few minutes, but before doing so I should like to make this point. The electrical power industry in this country has been criticised for what has been described as extravagant capital expenditure. It has been said that since 1945 far too much has been spent on new electrical projects, little perhaps of which was urgent. I suggest that the planning of the previous Government which, in the main, the present Administration have carried on, of large-scale electrical development has been thoroughly justified by the publication of this White Paper. Because, unless there is large-scale intervening electrical development, the advantages of nuclear energy cannot be taken from the nuclear energy plants to the factories, to the homes and to the farms.

I see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power has now left the Chamber.

Mr. Birch

I shall reply to the debate.

Mr. Palmer

Yes, and I do not doubt the helpfulness of the right hon. Gentleman. I was about to say that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power is more closely in touch with my further question because he is responsible for both the nationalised coal industry and the nationalised electricity industry. We are proposing to spend a vast sum of money on the development of nuclear power to obtain electrical energy. At the same time we are arranging to sink new pits and to spend large sums of money on the mining industry which, in turn, will be translated into electrical energy. What is to be the balance in economic planning between capital expenditure on nuclear energy and capital expenditure on the coal industry?

I can see that for the time being the two are complementary, but eventually nuclear energy is destined to supersede the other—as in fact the White Paper makes plain. It may be that after 1980 nuclear energy will take over entirely the large-scale obtaining of heat and energy from coal. Therefore the Government should look ahead now and ensure that there is a proper planned ratio between cap[...] expenditure on coalmining on the one hand, and the development of nuclear power stations on the other. I shall be grateful if the Minister of Works can give us an answer on that important point when he replies to the debate.

3.32 p.m.

The Minister of Works (Mr. Nigel Birch)

We have had a helpful debate with admirable contributions from both sides of the House, and I want to add my congratulations to those of many hon. Members to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) who moved the Motion, and also to his seconder the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine). My hon. Friend gave us an interesting historical account of how these matters have come about and also some admirable instruction in science. I am told by my advisers, who know all the answers, that although he did not get 100 out of 100, his information was good enough to earn him a distinction.

Mr. Follick

It was very good.

Mr. Birch

I agree. This White Paper has been generally welcomed as a realistic document, but there has been criticism about whether we are going fast enough. The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) asked whether £300 million will be sufficient.

Mr. Follick

It is a paltry little amount.

Mr. Birch

The House ought to realise the way in which this amount has been arrived at. My noble Friend and his advisers did not say, "We have £300 million. What shall we do with it?" What they did was to ask, "What in all the circumstances is the sensible thing to do about the development of this new means of producing electric power?" They had to take into account a large number of different factors. They had to take into account the speed at which the necessary teams to construct these plants could be trained. They also had to take into account the speed of the development in techniques which is going on all the time. We do not want to put vast sums of money into a type of reactor which will be out of date almost at once.

The hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer) asked about what I believe is known as the homogeneous type of reactor. It is well known to us; it is being developed and tests are being made. It may be that at some time we shall want to put down such reactors, but at this stage invention and design are going on at the same time; we must try to keep our feet on the ground and feel our way. As is clearly pointed out in the White Paper, the programme is a provisional one. It is not fixed, as were the laws of the Medes and Persians. It is subject to adjustment as we find out new things and see more clearly where we are going.

Several hon. Members opposite referred to the capital investment programme. It may be said that £300 million is too little, or that it is too much. The only point I want to make about it is that, on whichever side of the House we sit, we would all agree that our country must have electricity. We know how excessively inconvenient it is when we have not got it. This programme provides for an alternative way of producing electricity, and the capital cost is not, therefore, a net addition—because in any case we have to increase steadily our capital investment in the production of electric power. That is a point worth making.

Everybody recognises that atomic power offers a most hopeful development for the future, and it is coming none too soon. Cheap fuel is a source of economic vigour. Cheap coal was the source of our industrial pre-eminence in the past, and cheap coal, oil, natural gas and water power are the sinews of the American economy. If, therefore, we are to have prosperity, we must have further sources of power. The essential fact is that the steady and rapid expansion in the consumption of electric power will go on. The White Paper estimates that in 20 years' time we shall probably be using about three and a half times as much electric power as we are using now.

I want to give one or two figures in order to put the matter in perspective. In 1975 our requirements of generating capacity are likely to be between 55,000 and 60,000 megawatts. At that time, upon the assumptions contained in the White Paper the amount generated by nuclear power will be between 10,000 and 15,000 megawatts. This is not a very large proportion, but it is better than it looks, because all the nuclear power stations will be base-load power stations. In 20 years' time we can expect that about 30 per cent. of electric power in this country will be generated by nuclear power.

A rather important point was made by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) in this connection. In spite of the increased use of nuclear power, not only will there still be a demand for coal, but there will be an increased demand. In the current year the demand for coal for generating electricity will be about 40 million tons. In 1975, upon the assumptions to which I have referred, there will be a reduction in the demand for coal, from what it would have been if we had no nuclear power, of between 35 million and 40 million tons. Without that reduction, the demand for coal would not be 40 million tons but 100 million tons, and we shall therefore still need 60 million tons, or half as much again as we now use for generating electricity. Therefore, any idea that in the foreseeable future we can afford to relax in the production and development of our mines is wholly illusory. To say that because we have nuclear power we can possibly slack off in the production of coal is a misapprehension. So far as we can see, there is no immediate basis of any sort for saying that. We must realise our continued dependence on coal.

As to costs, it is estimated in the White Paper that the costs will be competitive with coal stations. I think that the estimates look reasonably conservative. I am afraid that it would be wildly optimistic to suppose that we are likely to get any reduction in the price of coal. In fact all the probabilities are the other way round. It is worth making the point that if we average out the costs of electrical power stations at the present time, we find that only 40 per cent. of the costs are fuel costs.

Nuclear power is simply another form of fuel, and we have to bear in mind that the bulk of the costs of electricity are not in fact fuel costs. Although I am sure that this will be an economic and a competitive source, I think it is a mistake to suppose that any reduction there may be in price in the foreseeable future will or can be a very dramatic one.

Several hon. Members have mentioned the siting of the new stations, and I have had lengthy correspondence on the subject, which I am passing on to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power. I hope that when it comes to the time for deciding where the stations are to be hon. Members who have been agitated about this will welcome the stations when they arrive, because they do not always welcome them when they are actually on the ground.

I am not in a position to say where the stations will be. The siting of the stations in England and Wales is a matter for the British Electricity Authority, and, in the case of Scotland and Northern Ireland, for the electricity authorities concerned. The considerations affecting where these sites should be are very much the same as those affecting ordinary sites. Ordinary sites have to be centred in an area where the base load is great, where they do not offend against amenities, and where there are ample water supplies. The only difference, I think we can say, is that it is not necessary for a nuclear power station to have such good communications, because there is not the immense traffic in coal coming in and in ash going out. Therefore, the question of communications is not so important.

The hon. Member for Billericay talked a good deal about Empire co-operation. We have both given help to and received help from our partners in the Commonwealth. Over the years, as the hon. Member knows, there has been much exchange of information with Canada, and we are now developing close technical collaboration with Australia and New Zealand. Hon. Members will have noticed in particular that we are now about to set up a plant to make heavy water in New Zealand. So far as the supply of uranium is concerned, the Commonwealth is of immense importance. South Africa is one of the main suppliers of uranium, and Australia is just beginning to come into the market. We look forward in the future to increasingly close relations with the Commonwealth in the whole of this development.

The next subject which bon. Members raised was training. For a few moments I thought it was developing into a sort of N.U.T. agitation on behalf of science teachers.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

As a member of the N.U.T. I did not follow the argument which was adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Follick).

Mr. Follick

What is more, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) does not know what he is talking about.

Mr. Ede

It may be. Neither do you.

Mr. Follick

Science teachers must be paid according to their value.

Mr. Birch

I hesitate to intervene between the two Members opposite——

Mr. James Hudson (Ealing, North)

Hon. Gentlemen on the Government side raised this matter too.

Mr. Birch

All right. I do not want to go back as far as the school child. That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education. I know it exercises his mind very much, and no doubt in due course he will have proposals to make.

Mr. Follick

I hope he will.

Mr. Birch

We are talking about what is to happen in the next 10 years. The training of children at school is not very relevant to that period, although it is highly relevant, I agree, to a later period. One of the main factors in the speed of development of the programme is how quickly we can train the men we shall need. A big part must be played by the universities, by the Atomic Energy Authority and by industry. As the hon. Member for Cleveland pointed out, the new atomic-power stations will be erected not by the nationalised authority but by private industry.

Universities are helping. I would like to mention Queen Mary College, London, and Birmingham and Manchester. They are all making special efforts in training people in the peaceful use of atomic energy. Manchester, in particular, has a six weeks' full-time course on nuclear engineering specially designed for industrialists. We hope that in time all universities will gradually do more in this direction, and by giving basic courses in nuclear and reactor physics.

Mr. Follick

What about Loughborough College?

Mr. Birch

Loughborough College is doing its best, as I am sure it will continue to do if the hon. Gentleman helps it. Training is carried out at Harwell, and a number of people from industry have had the chance to visit Atomic Energy Authority establishments. The object is to build up teams. We want teams with representatives from the British Electricity Authority, consulting engineers, heavy electrical and other engineering firms. These teams are being trained, and we hope they will be able to take care of the plans being made.

Safety is my next point. I am glad that many hon. Members mentioned it, and I am grateful for the contributions from those who went on the recent tour, which I have heard was a success. The Atomic Energy Authority will be grateful for the tributes paid to it over this. There is naturally some anxiety, because we are dealing with the unknown. As a matter of fact, the effect of radiation on the human body is not a new problem. It has been known about for a very long time. X-rays and radium have been used for 60 years, so we have behind us 60 years' experience of the effect of radiation on the human body. Experiments must go on but we are not starting from scratch.

Most stringent precautions are taken in all these stations. Some people say that the precautions are too stringent and go too far. The record of safety has been quite extraordinarily good. The mover of the Motion pointed out that there can be no question of an atomic explosion in a nuclear-power station, because the fissile materials are so diluted with other materials that there can never be a critical mass of sufficient size to cause an explosion.

On the question of atomic waste, how we shall get on with this problem depends, of course, on the degree of refinement of our techniques. Great advances are being made, and I want to emphasise that the greatest possible care is taken to see that the disposal of radioactive waste and waste products takes place without any danger whatever to the public being incurred. The method of disposal depends on the degree of radioactivity. Some goes into the air, some is piped out to sea, and some is taken in concrete or steel containers and dumped 1,000 miles out at a depth of 2,000 fathoms of water, and some of the very dangerous stuff has to be stored.

There are certain other waste products, such as Strontium 90 and Caesium 137, which are particularly dangerous, but we are evolving techniques to put them to useful work. For instance, we can use Strontium 90 to eliminate static charges from moving belts working in a dry atmosphere, while Caesium 137 can be used for medical purposes. The point is that this is a manageable problem. If the whole of the electricity generated in this country was now produced from nuclear power, the dangerous products would amount only to one or two tons per annum; clearly, with these precautions, this is an easily manageable proposition. There really is no danger, and the very natural fears of the unknown which have been aroused are unnecessary.

On the question of isotopes, I agree with one hon. Gentleman who spoke of more industrial development. Only one-tenth of Harwell's total consignment of isotopes in 1953 went to industry. I think there is room for a good deal of improvement and expansion, and it would be a good thing if the managements of British industries knew more about it.

Many examples have been given of the simple uses of isotopes, like detecting leaks in pipes—I wish they could do it in respect of my own plumbing, but they never do—and taking very accurate measurements of the thickness of various materials. There is a number of more imaginative uses. Recently, the Port of London Authority was anxious to trace the movement of silt in the estuary of the Thames. Certain radioactive particles were mixed with ground glass and put into the silt, which enabled the Port of London Authority to trace exactly what happened to the silt.

Unfortunately, we are not all as intelligent or well-informed as Lord Waverley, and we do not necessarily think of these things for ourselves, but there is an immense field for the use of isotopes in most varied ways. The Atomic Energy Authority is always willing to help anybody who has a problem if it can in any way be solved by the use of isotopes or nuclear techniques.

In the medical uses, to which one hon. Member referred, great progress is being made, such as in tracing the circulation of the blood, as my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay described, and also in cancer research and treatment, in which radioactive cobalt is much more powerful and also cheaper than radium. For example, progress is being made in the treatment of cancer of the ear by the use of radioactive gold.

Therefore, I think we can say that a good deal of useful progress is being made, and that the White Paper shows that the Atomic Energy Authority has its feet on the ground, that its judgment is pretty good, and that it is determined to pursue a progressive policy in the future.

As is quite clear from the White Paper, no very dramatic results can come about in the next few years—we do not expect them—but they will come about in time. I do not doubt that our successors will mock us for the lack of simplicity in the devices we have used, but simplicity is one of the last things we think of—it has to be earned—and I do not think that, in the end, we shall find the techniques are so mysterious or difficult.

There are the most fascinating possibilities in the future—possibilities of breeder reactors and still further possibilities that may lie ahead. Those possibilities will bring us great benefits, not only in medical research and in the production of electric power, but in enabling us to fulfil our traditional role as the exporter of skills, techniques and advanced processes. Therefore, on every possible ground it is right to push on.

Several of my hon. Friends, and I think one or two hon. Gentlemen opposite, pointed out that all this sprang from the necessities of war. That point was particularly made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Ramsden). None of these things would have happened without it. In the stress of war we picked the lock of Nature's most formidable secret, and as a result the most appalling possibilities of danger and evil were launched upon the world. When thinking of the atomic bomb I always think of "Paradise Lost." I am sure that such a well-educated man as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) will remember that in "Paradise Lost," when the devil was expelled from Heaven and was plotting how to revenge himself on God, he said: And out of good still to find means of evil. Our object must be out of evil still to find means of good. That is what we are trying to do and, pray God, we shall succeed. I thank my hon. Friend for moving this Motion and I accept it with pleasure.

Mr. Ede

I should like to echo the last sentiments uttered by the right hon. Gentleman. I am not sure that we did not burst the lock of Pandora's Box and release a great many evils on the world. What this debate—and all debates on this subject—has proved is that science must be made the servant of our moral feelings. The tremendous powers with which we are now endowed call for the making of right choices in a way that has never been more important in the history of the world. Unless this generation trains people, not merely as scientists but as believers in the great, moral, human principles that have governed us in the past, what should be a blessing will certainly be a curse.

Mr. J. Hudson

I do not wish to talk out a Motion which speaks of the necessity of accepting this power for peaceful purposes. I was only sorry that in one of the last speeches there seemed to be a little deviation from peaceful purposes to what can be done for warlike purposes. I heartily support the Motion before us.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House welcomes the possibility of the benefits to be obtained from the peaceful applications of atomic energy, with particular reference to the programme outlined by the Government for the development of electricity from nuclear power and to the use of radioactive isotopes in research, medicine, industry, and agriculture.