SCHEDULE TO BE INSERTED AS SCHEDULE 1 TO NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS ACT 1965 (Hansard, 15 January 1971)

§ Mr. Benn
I wish to raise a small point about the provision that the Minister can lay upon the company certain conditions with respect to national security. It is not a very complicated point and the Ministers need not worry that I shall probe the matter too deeply.
There are two requirements under the Schedule. One is as to safety. As one would expect, the company has to ensure that its operations are safe and it has to pay for that itself. But, in view of the sensitive technologies involved, there are other considerations in respect of which the Government say national security must be met and the Minister can lay down conditions which the company must follow. This is a matter of considerable international interest. In those cases, the Government pay because these matters are dealt with, not for commercial reasons or for reasons which apply in the normal conduct of business, but because of the big national and international security interests.
I see from page v of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum that the cost of security directions is not expected to exceed £100,000 a year. In the Bill which I introduced last year the figure was £200,000. Anyone reading the Bill might be led to the conclusion that the Government have decided to cut the amount involved in national security from £200,000 to £100,000. I do not know whether that is right. It may be that on further examination national security requirements are not thought to be onerous in financial terms and that we do not need to allow for more than £100,000. Perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the summer, decided that every Department had to find some way of making savings and a notional saving in the public expenditure survey figures of £100,000 was worth making to make it look better.
Whatever the reason why the figure of £100,000 was inserted, all that I ask the Minister to do is to say how important he regards national security provision and 422 that whatever sums are necessary to secure it will be paid by the Government and reimbused to the company.

§ Sir H. Legge-Bourke
The only point which I wish to raise arises from paragraph 3(2) of the Schedule.
A great principle in the House is that all Members have equal rights. From time to time it has been considered whether members of Select Committees who want to visit certain establishments should be given special rights which are not shared by all hon. Members. The Select Committees have generally set their face against that because they feel that once we depart from the principle that all hon. Members have equal rights we shall land ourselves in great trouble. For this reason, presumably, the Select Committee which dealt with defence research was kept away from Aldermaston at one time because in order to look inside one had to have security clearance, which would have put one in a privileged position.
We are now moving into a time when there will be a new type of creature in this field. It will be partly Government-owned, partly privately-owned and operating in a highly sensitive area. Has my hon. Friend given any thought to the position of Members of this House, particularly those who have been members of the Select Committee on Science and Technology and who have taken a great interest in the whole question of atomic energy particularly in relation to the power supply of this country? Will they be able, in the ordinary way, to adopt the procedure hitherto adopted, or would it be a question of the company deciding whether we can get in? Non-Government participating companies have some times set their faces against Members of Parliament rambling around their re search departments, and sometimes I do not blame them. We should know what is to be the attitude of these new companies.
Will there be the normal procedure, or will there be the procedure whereby it will be open to the company to decide whether to resist an attempt by Members of Parliament to get inside? My own feeling is that this is too important for us not to continue the procedure which would normally apply to Government research establishments.

§ Sir J. Eden
To answer the point of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol, Southt-East (Mr. Benn) first, this is not part of the Government's attack on public expenditure. The difference in the two figures is simply due to the fact that the Ministry of Defence will be paying for that aspect of the work which applies to it. It will therefore carry its proportion of the cost on its Vote.
I sympathise with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) having in the past, as an opposition Member and a Government back-bencher, sought to gain entry for perfectly normal and proper purposes to an establishment. It was sometimes difficult because, understandably, one was limited in the amount of access to matters of a specialised and secret nature.
Since these companies will have information of a specially sensitive kind we have to exercise a great degree of caution. Subsection (2) of paragraph 3 refers to the right of entry. I am sure that when it comes to be established the fuel company will adopt a sensible policy towards the visits of hon. Members. When it comes to operating this Schedule and assessing what persons should and should not enter the premises referred to, I am certain that the companies will wish to adopt as expansive and welcoming an approach to hon. Members as is possible within the confines of the Official Secrets Act.