ENERGY POLICY AND NUCLEAR ENERGY

HC Deb 07 December 1977 vol 940 cc1563-606

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)

Before I call the Minister to move the motion, I should indicate that Mr. Speaker has not selected the amendment in the names of the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) and other Members.

11.42 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn)

I beg to move, That this House takes note of Commission Documents Nos. R/1955/77, R/1959/77, R/2347/77, R/2348/77 and R/2594/77 on Energy Policy and R/1901/77, R/1956/77 and R/1958/77 on Nuclear Energy. First, I express a view that will be widely shared in the House—namely, my regret that an important debate should be taking place as late at night as this and that we should be under the pressure of an EEC Energy Council meeting next Tuesday at which some of these issues will be raised, which means that I shall need to know as best as possible the views of the House. I am moved to welcome what my right hon. Friend the Lord President said about looking again at our scrutiny procedures in order to improve them. Meanwhile the "take note" motion is the only practicable course that we can adopt to permit these matters to be discussed.

By way of introduction, I shall draw some contrast between the way in which we are discussing and deciding United Kingdom energy policy with the way it is being determined within the EEC. We have had with general good will—I am not trying to commit anybody—a development of energy policy with the help of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, whose chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), is always present to remind the House of the work done by the Committee, a national energy conference, many public hearings, public documents, an Energy Commission which met for the first time last week, tripartite meetings, legislation and debates.

It has been my intention throughout that all these issues should be discussed openly and by a consultative process. I recognise that it is a bit slower to do it that way, but the intention has been to share decisions much more widely. I do so as the Minister accountable to the House of Commons. I would not be sorry if the powers-that-be who decide these things were to supplement this development by having a Select Committee solely concerned with energy. That would not be at all a bad idea. I am not sure how that would be done, but if it were the view of the House there would be no hostility to it from the Minister responsible.

By contrast, the development of energy policy within the Community is on a completely different basis—

Mr. Peter Rost (Derbyshire, South-East)

They take decisions.

Mr. Benn

I shall come to that in just a moment. First, the Commission, of the work of which the Minister and Parliament know practically nothing, operates in secret. There is no report by the Commission to the Council of Ministers. Secondly, there is a Coreper, a committee of representatives which is made up of senior Foreign Office officials of the Community countries—Sir Donald Maitland is our representative—and which is not specifically concerned with energy. It meets in private. Thirdly, there are ministerial meetings, held in secret as well. Yet, as tonight's debate proves, the documents we are discussing today are of fundamental importance and could affect a very large number of people in this country.

I draw this comparison because I think that the debate on EEC energy policy, in which I have played some part, has tended to be on the question of "in or out" instead of, or much to the exclusion of, the question of the methods of the EEC and their acceptability in the United Kingdom as a means of making energy policy. The reason why I have alluded to the way in which I have sought to deal with this in the United Kingdom is that I should be wholly opposed to secret methods of making energy policy in the United Kingdom, particularly if that led to decisions which had not been the subject of very wide discussion.

Mr. Nigel Forman (Carshalton)

Can the right hon. Gentleman enlighten us as to why a number of these documents refer to a communication to the Council of 17th May entitled "The Community in the International Nuclear Environment"? We understand from the explanatory memorandum put out by the Government that it was never published. Why did the Commission never publish that document?

Mr. Leo Abse (Pontypool)

Why, when I have requested that document to be made available, has that never been done? An inquiry was made today in the Library, and it was confirmed that the document is an unpublished working paper which is therefore not available for distribution. Is my right hon. Friend aware that this seminal document which should have been before us has not been available for us to debate?

Hon. Members

Hear, hear.

Mr. Benn

I shall make inquiries about this. I must tell the House, however, because this is central to the general argument that I have been conducting internally for two and a half years, that any documents, whether working or not, in Europe or the United Kingdom should not be withheld from publication. That is my position and I have stated it in the Commission. Naturally, I have discussed this with my colleagues in the Government. At the last three Energy Councils—I began it on my first time as President—I have made it clear that I believe that the Energy Council should be held in public. There is nothing secret in what we discuss, and we should meet in public, because for this purpose at any rate it is a sort of legislative body.

If what my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) said reflects the view of the House, as it seemed to do from the sounds of assent given to it, I shall be strengthened in my arguments in pressing this at the Council meeting next Tuesday.

Mr. Arthur Palmer (Bristol, North-East)

Would my right hon. Friend's plea for the open publication of documents apply to documents supplied to his Energy Commission?

Mr. Benn

Of course. Every document that goes to the Energy Commission is published. In addition, the transcripts of the Commission, which are now being typed, will be published. I could challenge hon. Members to find any document on any aspect, other than commercial contracts, which has not been made available to the House. I know that this is a source of some tittering to those who believe that the Commission is a "chat-in", but it would be wrong to take these decisions until the wide range of institutions have had their opportunity to express their views. Hon. Members would be surprised how many different bodies are concerned with this topic. It is helpful to me as a Minister to know what people think before I take a decision.

Mr. Peter Walker (Worcester)

Does that mean that in the right hon. Gentleman's view the report of the inspector of the Windscale inquiry should be debated and discussed before a decision is taken?

Mr. Benn

There is an amendment about that which Mr. Deputy Speaker said must not be debated, but I should like to answer the right hon. Gentleman's question. This is a matter for ray right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The question was raised recently in the House by one of my hon. Friends and I undertook to convey his opinion to the Secretary of State for the Environment. I have done that and I have, therefore, discharged my obligation. It is not a matter for me, and I hope that the House will excuse me from dealing with it. With my good will, responsibility for dealing with these matters has been transferred to another Minister. I believe that the Department of Energy should not have responsibility for these matters. If it did, people would say that it had a vested interest.

Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater)

Can the Secretary of State confirm a report that his own adviser, Professor Odell, has been refused access by the Department of Energy to certain information about the oil industry?

Mr. Benn

I shall look at that and find out. The question is fresh to me. I invited Professor Odell to advise me on the relationship between the oil companies and foreign companies. I thought that he was well able to do that. Advisers are not privy to confidential, commercial matters, but at the same time they must have access to relevant information. I shall look into that question.

I want to express to the House the view that I have already expressed to the Energy Council. I believe that the handling of energy policy in the Community requires some important changes if it is to be acceptable to us. I want to tell the House what I believe these changes should be.

First, Ministers should meet in open session. That is a reasonable propositon. Secondly, the Commission should report to Ministers on its activities in addition to putting documents before them. Thirdly, Parliament should examine proposals in detail. I have put that to the Council, and it concerns the scrutiny to which I have referred.

If we have an Energy Commission at home, proposals from the Community should be discussed at home. It is no good my putting proposals to the British Energy Commission if Community proposals are not made available for comment by the Energy Commission at home. This may sound complicated, but anyone who follows energy matters knows what a wide range of interests is involved.

On this basis, one can begin to develop what should be our attitude to Community energy policy. First, let us be clear that we want a successful Community policy for energy. There is no dispute about that. Secondly, as I have made clear in Brussels, Luxembourg and here, in our view it should be based upon the harmonisation of the national plans of the member States. We believe that if we do it that way we shall make more progress than if we did it the other way, which is to make energy policy the spearhead for a federal control of energy in the Community by the Commission, thus becoming the instrument by which the Commission gains control over the resources, the policy or the democratic safeguards of any member State.

That is my general approach. I do not believe that it would be specially controversial in the normal arguments about Community membership. It seems to me a sensible way to make progress. I have made this approach clear, and I hope that I carry the House generally with me in asserting it.

The reason why I have gone into this detail—if we stay as late as this it is worth doing it properly—is that I think that the criteria I have outlined are helpful in assessing how we approach these documents. If the documents, be they recommendations or regulations, lead to sensible co-operation and harmonisation, the House should welcome them. I certainly do. If, however, they were to represent a takeover of policy, resources or basic national interests, we should look at them very critically.

I turn now to the clutch of documents before us, and first I deal with the nuclear energy documents. These proposals—they probably will not come up for decision next Tuesday—are all fundamentally important to the handling of nuclear policy in the United Kingdom itself. It can hardly be denied after our debate last Friday that in nuclear matters one is never dealing solely with national concerns, because all nuclear matters are by definition international.

In the debate, I went through the list of organisations concerned, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation Programme, the International Atomic Energy Authority and Euratom. They are concerned with proliferation, safety standards and technical co-operation.

Nothing that I am about to say should be read as suggesting that in nuclear policy any one country could cut itself off and say "We are an island unto our-serves". But I must emphasise, as I shall on Tuesday, that decisions on reactor types, on whether we are to adopt the AGR or the PWR type, on the fast breeder, on reprocessing or on waste disposal must be retained within a régime of decision-making that leaves them accountable to the House of Commons and the electorate in this country.

In saying that, I am defending not only my own ministerial interests but the Department of the Environment as well. I know that there is some comment abroad about why we have been able to have these nuclear debates without riot police being called out. It is not just a matter of open discussion; it is because people know that in the end any decision will be taken by Ministers accountable to Parliament and by Members of Parliament accountable to their constituents. It is also because the people in this country trust the Department of the Environment to appoint an inspector to look at reprocessing and to do it in a fair and balanced way, and they know that when the Minister reaches a decision it will be one for which he and the Cabinet as a whole are responsible. The right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) knows all this. He has been in charge both of energy matters and of the environment; he has worn two hats.

Mr. Tom King

The right hon. Gentleman is getting carried away. Who actually takes the decisions in Germany and France? Perhaps this is a rather dialectic point, but in the end Ministers take these decisions in those countries.

Mr. Benn

I am not commenting on how other countries do it. I am saying that it would be an entirely different situation if the decision as to whether we went ahead with Windscale were taken by the Commission. That is the point I am making. I think that our method of public discussion is probably a better way of doing it. I am saying that what we are really safeguarding is not so much, or alone, the discussion but the fact that in the end someone stands up and says "I had the inquiry. I considered it. I decided it. I am responsible for it. Get rid of me if you wish." If we were to say to the House—I do not think that the hon. Gentleman will disagree with me—"Whatever the inspector said, the Commission has decided whether Windscale is to go ahead and that we are to have a fast breeder reactor", or whatever might be decided, we would reopen public anxiety not because it is the Commission but because there is not a fabric or a line of responsibility from the Commission to the electorate for the purpose of deciding.

I attach very great importance to this matter. Anyone who reads the documents on nuclear policy that are before us will find on one interpretation what they might be suggesting, for example, on waste disposal. In waste disposal techniques, let us have a full exchange of information. Let us upgrade to the best. But one could not have a situation in which it was decided outside this country where the waste of this country and other countries was to be put in this country, unless it was decided by British Ministers.

I hope that these constitutional digressions are not thought to be irrelevant, because, frankly, I could not accept a transfer of responsibility for a decision of this magnitude from the House of Commons to anyone else whatsoever. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool and I have differed on the European question, but I do not believe that the question I am now raising reopens old wounds of that kind. It is not intended to do so. It is intended to try to unite a body of people in the House behind a British Minister who has to argue these arguments in a forum which is not as familiar as we are with the way in which these matters are settled.

Therefore, when I go to the meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, I intend to say there much of what I have said tonight, and I hope that the House will not think me wrong to do so. I reassure the House that decisions will not be taken on these matters on Tuesday. The European Assembly has to be consulted, and these matters will come up later. However, I want there to be no misunderstanding about them. Indeed, when the Commission had hearings recently on nuclear power, organised by Commissioner Brunner, I invited him to come and see me to discuss it. I very much welcomed the seminars that were being held, but I underline the view that a seminar organised by the Commission could not be a substitute for ministerial control by any member State on matters of this magnitude.

By contrast, lest anyone thinks that I am being negative, one can have successful co-operation on nuclear matters. I cite, for example, the JET project, which took a very long time to be agreed. Here we have an important international technical project which is too expensive for any member State to undertake. We very strongly supported JET from the beginning. We joined in the discussions about where it should be sited. In my opinion, expensive forward-looking research and development of that kind is absolutely proper for the Community, and it does not raise any of the questions that I have raised in the context of nuclear decisions.

I see the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) in his place. I recall that when, on an earlier occasion, he spoke from the Opposition Front Bench he raised some of the questions with which I have dealt tonight. He might not have thought that I was listening, but I was. I have tried to reflect some of the things that he said about the passage of decision-making on nuclear policy from this Chamber to the Council or the Commission.

Mr. Rost

Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear that he is not trying to confuse the House on two separate issues: the decision-taking—most of us would agree that individual nations should retain this power—and collaborative research and development projects? Surely, most of the documents deal with recommendations that we should get together on research and development on nuclear waste problems and the fast breeder reactor as well as on JET.

Mr. Benn

I hope that the hon. Gentleman would acquit me of ever being reluctant to talk to anybody about energy problems. I must have spoken to more people about them than anyone else has done, because I believe that discussion of them is very valuable. I suggested that the Council of Ministers' discussion about nuclear policy should be open, but as the Ministers would not have it we had the seminar hearings outside.

I find the discussions in the Council of Ministers very interesting. I am not trying to suggest that certain subjects should be abstracted from them. I am strongly in favour of international discussions and collaboration about a whole range of matters, including JET, fluidised-bed burning, which is an International Energy Agency operation, and some of the subjects we shall discuss tonight. But I wanted to make clear beyond peradventure, as they say, that I could not accept that one should slip from a discussion of these matters to decision-making about the fast breeder.

The House knows our view on the fast breeder. We have not yet made up our minds. We have not closed the option of building it. We have said that if we decide to build it we shall have another inquiry like the one that took place at Windscale. Subject to the inquiry's conclusion, international collaboration on the fast breeder would be right. There are strong arguments for it, but the desirability of international collaboration cannot of itself be a reason for bypassing the decision that must be taken here. I do not think that anyone will disagree.

I come to the other clutch of issues that are included on the Order Paper. I want to go through them one by one. Document R/1955/77 concerns the grant of a measure of support for Community projects in the hydrocarbons sector—not exploring but supporting technology in that sector. It is a very good scheme. The only trouble is that I had to go ahead with it before this debate because the time ran out. This exposes a difficulty of our scrutiny procedure. If I had not agreed before the debate, we should have missed the next year's work, and we have been doing very well out of it. We have about 31 per cent. of the projects. Nobody would deny that I was right to do what I did, but I felt uneasy and I wrote to the Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee explaining my dilemma.

The next document is No. R/1959/77, on the achievement of Community energy policy objectives for 1985. Here we run into serious difficulties. First, the Commission has suggested that the Community should commit itself to a rapid and expanding nuclear commitment. I must qualify that by repeating that if we go ahead with the document, in whatever form, it cannot of itself be held to commit us to specific nuclear decisions which we must take ourselves. I shall say that next week.

Secondly, there is a note about the amount of oil that the Community should produce by 1985. As most of the oil is United Kingdom oil, if I were to agree to that without qualification it could be argued that the Commission had taken over control of the rate of depletion of our oil. I could not possibly accept that. because had I agreed that it would be a good thing to have EEC oil available in large quantities the Commission could later say to me "By the way, Mr. Benn, that means that your depletion of the North Sea must be sufficient to meet our objectives", because that would involve a takeover of our depletion policy. In the most constructive and helpful way, I shall point that out to my ministerial colleagues.

Mr. Frank Hooley (Sheffield, Heeley)

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Treaty of Rome explicity excludes any say in the natural resources of a country from consideration by Brussels?

Mr. Benn

This is the uncertain area in which we operate. I know that and I accept it, but if as a Minister I assent to a level of Community production of oil and in fact it is "our oil"—to adopt a phrase from another debate which has Just concluded—and then they say "Mr. Benn, we have not met the domestic or Community requirement for production. Therefore, you will have to produce more from the North Sea.", the particular provision to which my hon. Friend referred might be eroded. I do not think it would be right for me to say that depletion policy had slipped out of our control by what is called a side wind.

We do not really agree with what the Commission suggests about the level of coal imports. We believe in moving to coal burning for all sorts of reasons—everyone accepts it worldwide—but the suggestion is that coal imports will play a very large part, and our interest is that, as 33 per cent. of all coal investment in the Community is ours, we really ought to meet demand by indigenous coal. The policy objectives which we have worked on at United Kingdom level ire guidelines. They are non-binding but they are very valuable.

The next document refers to the energy position in the Community and in the world. It is very helpful and is a survey of great value. I suggested that we should do it. I think that the House will find no difficulty in hoping that the Community will look at this at its Council meetings, and similarly in regard to energy supplies.

The last of the documents is on hydrocarbon exploration, and this is very important. The Commission is suggesting that the European Economic Community should drill for oil. I do not really have to say more than that to indicate that it is a quite an important issue. It was put up some years ago, before I was the Minister, and I do not think it had a very warm welcome, but at any rate work went on on that subject. What is now proposed—it probably will not be decided next Tuesday—is that in certain circumstances this work should be undertaken.

The United Kingdom view can be summarised very simply. It is, first, that we do not think it is very sensible to spend money on exploring where the oil is less likely to be. We feel that it is better to use the existing investment to search for oil where it is more likely to be, but that in any case, if this proposal were to be undertaken, it would have to be with the consent of the country whose territorial waters covered where the drilling took place. Put simply, it would not be sensible to wake up one day and find that there was Community drilling going on in the North Sea, as it were, without our understanding. I do not believe that that will be a difficult argument to put across, and I would intend to put it across.

I have now made a comment on each of the documents before the House, and I shall seek, if there is time, to deal with points that may be raised in the debate. I hope, however, that no Member who is unable to get called, or who wants to go on longer than he is able to do, will fail to put points to me, to which I would hope to give a proper reply. As I said at the beginning, I regard this as a very important debate indeed.

12.13 a.m.

Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater)

I do not know what the House will make of the performance it has just heard, but I think we all enjoyed it, if nothing else. I start in the most conciliatory way by accepting what the Secretary of State said about the totally unsatisfactory nature of the debate. We are dealing now with some eight EEC documents covering three entirely different subjects. We started at 11.42 p.m.—a time which may take on some significance later, as we are limited to two hours.

Certainly I join the Secretary of State in criticising this method of dealing with the documents. I do not, however, join him in any sympathy, because I should have thought he had a rôle to play in trying to change the method. As a member of the Cabinet, presumably he has some influence on the Leader of the House. But to stand before hon. Members in a white sheet and simply say "Aren't we all in a mess?" is not entirely satisfactory. He is a member of the Government, and I should have thought that he could have made some representation on the question.

If I may say so, I do not think that this is the best time at which to deal with these matters, as the right hon. Gentleman said. I think it affects us all adversely to be dealing with such matters at this time of night.

Frankly, I thought that the right hon. Gentleman talked absolute nonsense at one stage in his speech when he said that the real reason why we have not had the sort of demonstration which has taken place at Brockdorf and Creys Malville was that in Britain the decisions were taken by Ministers. With respect, I do not think that was a logical conclusion, because decisions are taken by Ministers in France and Germany. The Secretary of State appeared to indicate that these were somehow Community nuclear decisions, which, of course, they were not.

Mr. Benn

indicated dissent.

Mr. King

If that was not what the right hon. Gentleman meant, I entirely accept that. It was obviously a slip of the tongue.

We are not the first department, if I may put it that way, which has been faced with the discussion of documents at this hour. I do not know what will be done to tackle that problem. I do not know whether the reason is traditional inertia on the part of the House for improving its methods of dealing with these arangements or whether it is inertia coupled with antagonism in certain quarters to ensure that arrangements for handling European business are not improved, but it is clear that the present proceeding upon which we are engaged is a farce in terms of these very important documents on energy policy.

The documents cover three quite unrelated energy issues. That is certainly an unsatisfactory way to proceed. The first document seems to be a complete waste of time. It is an estimate of what energy consumption in the Community will be in the first half of 1976. It is an estimate of what energy consumption in the Community will be in the second half of 1976. It is a forecast of what energy consumption will be in the Community in the first half of 1977. It will not get us very much further by coming forward and discussing the matter now, in December 1977.

The next two papers are also concerned with energy forecasts. Here I entirely accept what the Secretary of State said about the implications in these documents. It is quite clear that the second document, which deals with oil production by 1985—if we regard ourselves as at present overwhelmingly the most likely producer of that oil—is very much setting a target for British production of North Sea oil.

I quite understand that that has considerable implications for United Kingdom depletion policy, and I understand why that matter will have to be looked at very carefully indeed. At the same time, it is necessary to recognise that, as in so many European situations, there are possibilities of compromise and agreement.

There are within these documents some very significant comments about coal. There is the very significant comment about the increasing difficulty of marketing Community production of coal within the Community and the fact that within the period referred to imports increased by about 17 per cent. When one looks at the development of energy supplies in the Community there can be no doubt that the development of the coal market and its implications are of considerable significance to this country.

Obviously, there will be difficulty for the Secretary of State in the dicussions on these matters. We know about the problem of low-cost COMECON coal, for example, and the difficulties of getting satisfactory markets for United Kingdom production. Some measure of give and take may be necessary in that area. The Secretary of State is constantly reminding us that the United Kingdom is an energy producer within the Community and of the fact that the Community could provide a valuable market for us, particularly with regard to coal, which is, perhaps, our hardest commodity to move in that respect.

I turn briefly to the two further measures on hydrocarbon support. If one were cynical, one would say that the Government are in favour of the first measure because we get 31 per cent. of the money and they are not in favour of the second because we get nothing out of it. That may be unkind, and I do not want to make that suggestion even at this late hour.

However, I felt that the Secretary of State was somewhat unduly sinister in his observation that this was the first suggestion that the Community might drill for oil. I do not know whether the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary is to reply to the debate, but whoever replies may like to clarify this point.

I understand that this is merely assistance similar to the first scheme but in respect of a rather different type of project. It is a similar form of commercial assistance for projects which are considered promising but which are in a high-risk area where it is thought that some financial stimulus from the Community could provide an added incentive to their promotion. I understand that the development or exploration will be done as it is done in the Community by oil companies at the moment, and that the loans received will have to be repaid to the Community. I do not see this as a sinister Community takeover and a sudden new nationalised or communautaire oil development of the kind implied by the Secretary of State.

There are some interesting aspects about the schemes, and I must confess that I have my doubts about both of them. Looking at the document numbered 1955, which includes this vast range of projects, there are some extremely interesting developments in such matters as seabed completions. Some very interesting development work is being done. It occurs to me to wonder whether these are schemes which need funding in the first place or whether they would not stand on their own feet. They raise the same question that the Government's accelerated project schemes raise in this country. The question is always whether they would go ahead anyway and whether they really need additional funding of this kind. One is bound to ask whether this is funding for the sake of funding or whether it really contributes to Europeon developments of this kind which would not otherwise go ahead.

Having said that, we draw encouragement from and pay tribute to the number of British developments that there are in this scheme of very high technology. It is most encouraging to see them. The new ideas which are clearly spurred on by developments in the North Sea are creating new techniques in the oil industry which could have application worldwide, we hope, and they are most encouraging.

I understand that the principle of this has been approved and that what the House is being asked to do is to enable the Minister to draw on the views of the House about whether each of these projects which have been approved are the detailed list which should go ahead. I am not sure whether I have understood this procedure correctly, but I understand that the principle of the assistance was agreed some months ago by Ministers, that the Commission has now produced its proposals as regards the detailed schemes which should be recommended for assistance, and that the House is being asked to decide which of the schemes should be approved.

There are also some interesting claims. I was interested to see that the Commission felt that the deep drilling of the Western Mediterranean could be as promising an area as the Arabian plateau. If that is true, it is surprising that the oil companies need any financial inducement to get in there fast and start drilling. But that is one of the claims in the document.

Mr. Benn

I do not want to be difficult, but I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman a basic question. At home, in relations between the Government and industry, his party is now increasingly taking the view that the Government should absent themselves from industrial interference, investment and funding. I take a different view. When I go to Brussels. however, I find that the interventionism is coming from the Commission.

I should genuinely like to know whether the same criterion of non-interference with industry, which the hon. Gentleman upholds at home, should also be maintained in Brussels. It is a legitimate question to ask. Does the hon. Gentleman say that I should not do it at home but that if I do not agree to it in Brussels I am being non-European? That is a genuine question, and the hon. Gentleman has never given any clear answer.

Mr. King

I like the idea that I have never given a clear answer. The Secretary of State has only just asked the question. I shall give him a clear answer. I see no case for wasting money in Brussels any more than in Britain. The Secretary of State has sought to make a neat debating point, but he should think about the logic of the matter.

This scheme is very similar to our accelerated investment scheme, and my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself have asked on each occasion whether the expenditure really meets the criteria. We have accepted that in certain specific cases there may be grounds for intervention. But in some cases the Government give the impression that they are spraying money around like water in the belief that this will solve the problem. We feel—and I am sure that the taxpayers feel—that this is no more justified in Brussels than it is in London.

There are a number of projects here, and I hope that the Secretary of State will approach Brussels in the manner of a governor of one of the States of the United States of America who was said to remain in office for so long because he spent public money as if it were his own—in other words, he did not spend much at all. We would on occasion welcome that philosophy from this Government. I hope that the Secretary of State will carry that thought to Brussels.

I turn to the nuclear situation. The proposals here obviously touch on a very important issue of great concern in this country. I comment briefly on the lapse of logic by the Secretary of State. We have a precious position at present which, for various reasons that none of us can understand perfectly, means that we are blissfully free of the sort of public demonstrations and riots that were seen in Brockdorf and Creys Malville. Even the normally temperate Swiss have suffered.

I think that the papers divide themselves on the reprocessing side, where BNFL is already involved and has a joint European company. It is vital that we should stay involved and closely in touch. This is an acceptable situation.

Mr. Abse

Is the hon. Member really suggesting that we should go into a committee which has the terms of reference within that document relating to reprocessing? Does he accept that a committee with these terms of reference is the sort of committee that should be set up? This sounds remarkably like giving a blank cheque.

Mr. King

I hope that the hon. Member and I are talking about the same document. I think that his concern lies mainly with the third document. I share the Government's view, expressed by the Secretary of State, that it would be sensible for the committee to be set up. I do not see the terms of reference as being as sinister as the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) sees them. However, I shall look at them again, and if I have missed something perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane) will cover my position before the end of the debate.

On radioactive waste, I think that the idea of identification of sites when we have not yet agreed on the method of disposal, or even if there is a satisfactory method of on-land disposal, is premature. One of the prime recommendations of the Flowers Report is the need for getting on with further research into the question of long-term waste disposal. What are the Government doing about this matter? It is the essential prerequisite of any further development in this field. Furthermore, it is inevitable that countries will have to be responsible for their own wastes, and this will mean some limitation on the Community in this respect.

I wish to deal with the third aspect of the papers that are before us on the subject of the fast breeder. I accept that there is a difficulty in proposing Community views on the fast breeder. It is tragic that in the past we have failed to achieve a greater measure of co-operation in fast breeder development. We now face a "Yes or No" situation in an extremely expensive development. On Friday, the Secretary of State for Energy floated a figure of £2,000 million. I do not accept that figure, but if we finally decide to embark on the procedure discussed on Friday it will make a good deal more sense if it can be funded jointly.

I feel that the fast breeder falls into the same category as JET. The right hon. Gentleman said he accepted that the high technology projects and the related costs were a matter for Community co-operation. From that point of view, the fast breeder must fit into that category. Unfortunately, we seem to have missed out so far in this respect. On Friday we discussed the situation that would occur following Mr. Justice Parker's decision and the eventual governmental decision following a public inquiry. It was made clear that there is a case for a fast breeder demonstration to maintain the option, and it was felt that this should be recognised as an insurance premium against the chance that certain other options let one down, and did not carry with it any commitment to an ongoing programme. That is very much in line with the Flowers recommendations.

Against that fairly tightly considered position, one must consider the difficulty in imposing a Community view at this stage. Although I hope that the Secretary of State will co-operate with the Community and discuss these problems—and all Community countries face the same problems—we must recognise the personal and national problems that flow from fast breeder development.

Mr. Robin F. Cook (Edinburgh, Central)

The hon. Gentleman has argued the points about the fast breeder with great lucidity and reasonableness, but does he believe that if we were to spend £2,000 million on developing one demonstration of the fast breeder reactor it would not generate intolerable pressures for the nuclear industry to go ahead with a further programme to justify the investment in the single demonstration plant?

Mr. King

I appreciate the fact that the hon. Gentleman left the debate on Friday and was unable to hear my comments. I know all the arguments made on that point, but I do not accept the figure of £2,000 million which has been bandied around. I do not think that the Secretary of State would stake his life on that figure. For this reason among others, I believe that we need a public inquiry to clarify some of the issues.

The cost to be considered is not total cost. It involves the cost as against that of a conventional station producing that amount of electricity. I would not regard that part as development cost. It is possible that the eventual figure could amount to one-quarter of the figure quoted by the right hon. Gentleman. I accept the existence of a commercial and political lobby, in the Eisenhower phrase, but I believe that to abandon that option on the grounds that one could not resist the pressure thereafter, would be a policy of despair. I do not accept it.

I have tried to review the documents and I apologise for the bitty nature of my speech, but this inevitably flowed from the bitty nature of the documents. I do not know how the Secretary of State will succeed in the campaign, to which he has publicly committed himself, to improve the method of scrutinising EEC documents and ensuring that they can be considered by the House at a better time.

I was interested in the right hon. Gentleman's answer to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman) about the document which was not published, because it is quoted on virtually every one of the explanatory memoranda and immediately beneath in each case is the signature "Tony Benn". It is surprising that with the right hon. Friend's interest in open government he has not questioned why the document referred to above his signature has never been published for the House to read. Perhaps the Minister will be able to clarify this.

Mr. Benn

It is not my document.

Mr. King

But it is the right hon. Gentleman's signature that is appended on every document, while the preceding paragraphs refer to the document which has not been laid. Since this was not a matter for the Secretary of State's Department, it would have been better if, before signing, the right hon. Gentleman had asked why the document had not been laid before the House.

Mr. Abse

Would it not be fair to point out that it was precisely because the Secretary of State drew our attention to the document and the fact that it was unpublished that we became aware of the difficulties? I do not know why the Opposition are making such a silly point in a serious debate.

Mr. King

I just felt that I should mention it. I understand that the hon. Gentleman is trying to support the Secretary of State, but I have here the documents that we have with the right hon. Gentleman's signature, referring to the unpublished document. My right hon. and hon. Friends were surprised at that and also that when questions were asked the right hon. Gentleman said that he had no idea why the document had not been published. Of course, it is only a small point. Why does not the Secretary of State suggest to the Under-Secretary some splendidly withering repartee for his reply?

Mr. Peter Hardy (Rother Valley)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that we are allowed two hours for this debate and that the two Front Bench speakers have occupied half of the time available. I do not complain at that, because the issues before the House are extremely complex, but the fact that half the time has already gone illustrates the ridiculous situation in which the House is now placed.

Mr. Speaker

If the hon. Gentleman has any suggestions for the Chair on how we can help to reduce the length of speeches, I shall be greatly obliged.

12.39 a.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer (Bristol, North-East)

In view of what has been said, I shall try to be mercifully short. I spoke at reasonable length on Friday when my hon. Friend introduced this subject in his motion with such dramatic effect, if not always with complete accuracy on other points. In a sense, tonight's discussion is the second act of Friday's debate. I am sorry and glad that the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) was not called. I am glad because it was underlining the obvious. As I remember it, it called for an inquiry into the commercial fast breeder reactor, but we are going to have that. The inquiry has been promised, and it does not seem necessary to underline the point.

I hope that we can find a method of dealing with these documents before long. I do not know what the Secretary of State will achieve at the meeting on Tuesday, but I hope that there will be some guidance for him in these important matters.

I accept the need for a defined inquiry into the commercial fast breeder reactor, but I do not believe that it will be at all the same thing as the Windscale inquiry. It should not be forgotten that the extra reprocessing at Windscale was agreed in the first place by the Secretary of State for Energy. The inquiry was later set up as a result of the intervention of the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Windscale inquiry decision proceeded, if not by leaps and bounds, at least in a very uneven way.

The inquiry into the fast breeder reactor is a horse—perhaps I should say reactor—of a different colour altogether. Rightly or wrongly, it has been the cornerstone of British nuclear development from the start. It seems to me that the Government are taking a risk in apparently putting the whole ultimate future of the British nuclear programme on the chance of one inquiry without clarified terms of reference. That is why I emphasise again the need for the terms of reference to be carefully thought out in advance. A great deal of thought is needed on this point in fairness to our reactor industry.

I am sorry that the amendment was not called because it would have enabled us to probe a little more the apprehension that still seems to exist over nuclear energy and the advanced technology that goes with it. There is a fear—which has been referred to again in this debate—that there is some sort of nuclear Establishment which is determined to have its own way in spite of ministerial checks and the alleged consequential risks to our people. From my experience of the industry and my knowledge of its leaders, I regard this as an extremely irrational view.

Since the early days of nuclear energy, those closely associated with it have been aware of its special nature and hazards and have developed means of controlling them to a degree that is unprecedented in any other industrial process. To my knowledge, those in the so-called nuclear Establishment, whether in the Atomic Energy Authority, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. or the Central Electricity Generating Board, are men of great public responsibility who have devoted their lives to the task of using the power of the atom for good and beneficial purposes.

As I said on Friday, most of those people would share my view of the energy future of this country and Western Europe. In the end, we shall need energy from every available source. We should certainly conserve what we have and develop all alternative energy sources, but in the end, when the fossil fuels run out, nuclear power is the only source that can give us the energy on the scale that we need to enable us to maintain a reasonable standard of life. This is a factor of very great importance to Western Europe, where the dangers of an ultimate shortage of cheap energy are greater than any possible risk from the fast breeder reactor.

The proposals regarding disposal of radioactive waste and the suggestion in tonight's Community papers that we should look around—on a limited Community basis—for a network of sites are impractical. They would arouse enormous opposition in this country.

Mr. Hooley

And elsewhere.

Mr. Palmer

And elsewhere, as my hon. Friend says. From what my right hon. Friend said I take it that we need no assurance that proposals of this kind will be open to discussion and attempted modification by British Ministers.

One gathers from one of the other documents that the fast breeder reactor is visualised by the EEC as giving some kind of fall-back, reserve position. If advanced through the prototype commercial fast breeder reactor stage, the only justification for so doing would be that the commercial fast breeder reactor stations were the new standard nuclear stations because of the way in which they economise so greatly in the use of uranium. Unless one is prepared to accept that, it does not seem to me that one takes a single genuine step further. I therefore consider that the Community's reservations, seeing the fast breeder reactor as a kind of fall-back possibility, are ill founded and erroneous and should be opposed.

12.45 a.m.

Mr. Nigel Forman (Carshalton)

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute briefly to the debate, and I shall not attempt to take up the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), although I am a member of his excellent Select Committee, on which I have enjoyed serving. Nor shall I spend time discussing the two documents on hydrocarbons, since everything that I should wish to say has already been said. I shall focus my attention on the two documents dealing with nuclear power.

I take first Document No. R/1901 dealing with reprocessing. In my view, the Government are right to stress that decisions in this field are for them and them alone to take in the light of the advice which they will receive from Mr. Justice Parker following the Windscale inquiry. It would be a mistake for us in Britain to think that, because the other member States of the Community will have a tighter energy situation—there is no doubt about that—over the next five or 10 years, we should in some way be stampeded by their requirements into taking decisions which it would not be wise for us in this country to take.

I draw attention, for example, to what is said at the top of page 4 of the document on reprocessing. I am worried at the idea of nuclear fuel cycle services being used as sweeteners—that is the way I should describe it—for the export of nuclear power stations. We have seen this already in the Brazilian contracts with the West Germans. We have seen the danger of it in the French contracts with the Pakistanis. We know that there are serious dangers of proliferation even if it be a matter of providing services within the European Community for irradiated fuel sent back to us to be dealt with. I am not, therefore, happy about that.

I am concerned also about the excessively sanguine attitude taken in the document towards the technology for dealing with the problem of long-lived radioactive waste. I remind the House that no proven system for dealing with this problem has yet been demonstrated. It is not good enough for the Commission to talk blithely about permanent storage in geological formations. That is only one of the options which the experts will have to consider.

Furthermore, there is evidence, as the Windscale inquiry revealed, that the commercial viability of the reprocessing remains to be established. That point is made in the document before us. This commercial viability will be very dependent on the scale of throughput, which may or may not be available to the operations concerned because of a reduced nuclear electricity programme in all the countries involved.

I remind the House of the danger and folly of trying to justify a large nuclear programme on the ground that we shall have a reprocessing capacity of such a scale that we must have the programme in order to justify our original expenditure. That really would be putting the cart before the horse, and it would be an expensive mistake.

It is not as if there are no alternatives to reprocessing. As the document points out in page 9, the storage requirements for the period up to 1990 could be met by a doubling of the storage capacity currently allotted to each nuclear power station. That would not be the adoption of what is sometimes disparagingly called the throw-away nuclear fuel cycle. It would be a viable alternative that would preserve the option of reprocessing if we decided that we had no alternative to an FBR programme.

That brings me directly to the fast breeder issue, which is covered in Document No. R/1958/77. The Commission has revealed much of what I regard as muddled thinking. First, it argues that the Community must preserve the option of making the FBR commercially available in the early 1990s, when it expects that the Nine will be confronted with the notorious energy gap. However, the likelihood is that there will be no gap in the sense of an absolute shortage then or at any other time in the foreseeable future but rather that there may turn out to be a shortage of cheap liquid hydrocarbons, which is something quite different, by the turn of the century. If that materialises, it should not be filled by expensive nuclear electricity at some 30 per cent. thermal efficiency.

The document goes on to postulate a wholly unrealistic degree of dependence upon nuclear electricity within the total energy market from some 2 per cent. of total primary energy consumption in 1976 to about 10 per cent. in 1985, and perhaps 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. in the year 2000. Can anyone seriously imagine that the nuclear construction industry, to consider only that aspect, will be able to quintuple its contribution to energy supplies in seven short years and increase it by a factor of 10 in little more than 20 years? That has only to be suggested to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the position.

If the Community wants to preserve a balanced pattern of energy supply, it would be madness to go ahead with such a heavy reliance upon nuclear energy, which would preclude a significant com mitment to alternative sources over the same period and even some valuable investment in coal. It would be an Alice-in-Wonderland way of going about things.

Even if an approximation of such a policy were to be implemented, it would guarantee the self-fulfilling prophecy that is constantly reiterated by the experts that all other new energy sources will contribute only about 5 per cent. of the total by the year 2000. The argument that will be used is that the constraints on the uranium supply—those who put this case must be scrupulous about stating their assumptions—will be based on uranium being about $30 a pound when the normal workings of the price mechanism would serve to bring on stream many more economic deposits of uranium at a higher price.

In any case, there is a gap in the Commission's own argument when it postulates at one stage the need to rush ahead with the commercial availability of the FBR in the early 1990s but admits in page 6 that at least 20 years will be needed from then to install fast reactors in sufficient numbers to improve the overall uranium utilisation.

It is not as if the liquid metal FBR is the only route forward down the nuclear path towards more efficient uranium utilisation. Here and elsewhere, the nuclear Establishment is almost obsessively committed to one form of high technology which alone is gobbling up 30 per cent. of the total research and development expenditure in the energy sector when there are alternative possibilities such as the thorium-uranium cycle, which accelerator physicists say could breed 92 per cent. of the fuel it uses and derive the 8 per cent. from the neutrons produced by high energy particle accelerators.

That is not merely my say-so but is based on a quite learned article which appeared in Nature of 1st December 1977. The article states: the thorium-uranium cycle … which, at least according to its growing band of advocates, avoids the tremendous power density of the fast breeder core … which reduces the problem of the long-lived wastes like americum and curium, which protects against illegal diversion of fuel … and which with proton accelerators to 'top-up' the fissile content of the fuel rods might even avoid reprocessing altogether, has been looked at hardly at all outside some work in Canada and the U.S. In short, there are many roads that lead to Rome in energy as in other matters. It would be a foolish group of Community Governments who committed themselves massively and irrevocably to a system fraught with dangers, as would be a massive reliance on the LMFBR with its attendant fuel cycle.

I hope that the Government will pause to encourage their Community partners to look at all the alternatives, including some of the other nuclear alternatives, and not allow the Community to frame an energy policy which will be little more than unrealistic extrapolations of energy and electricity demand over an atypical period in the recent past combined with a panic reaction on the part of EEC Governments to the Arab oil embargo of 1973–74. Even the most intelligent people, it seems, are in danger of joining a Gadarene rush into unthinking decisions which, if they are not right, we could live to regret.

12.56 a.m.

Mr. Leo Abse (Pontypool)

I am sure that we are all encouraged by the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. He and I took different views on the question of entry into the EEC. I wanted to enter Europe in order to achieve collaboration and certainly not so that we should be dragged down the road to Armageddon.

From studying two of the documents that we have in front of us tonight, we are bound to have the gravest reservations. The two documents relating to the reprocessing of irradiated fuel and to the fast breeder reactor reveal that Britain is in danger of being drawn into nuclear commitments and goals that, above everything else, would spurn the efforts of President Carter to arrest nuclear proliferation which could threaten the future of mankind.

It should surely be no part of British policy to treat with cynicism the actions of President Carter in halting the American commercial fast breeder programme and deferring indefinitely the commercial reprocessing of plutonium produced in the United States. Both documents before us implicitly scoff at the unilateral and approved action taken by President Carter. The document on reprocessing has the specific aim of bringing about a convergence of the interests of promoters and users but of linking their action with that of the Community itself. I regard that as a complete affront to American policy.

The fact is that the document is asking us first to participate in setting up a European committee which will have a strategy on reprocessing achieved by procuring a revolting miscegenation of the nuclear and electricity industries. This is just the sort of marriage which at all costs should be avoided. We do not want to have the nuclear and electricity industries as bedfellows. Given the dangers, the hazards and the alternatives, it should be seen that it is no part of Britain's duty to encourage the European nuclear industry to seduce and subjugate the electrical industry and to allow the Community strategy to be determined by the misshapen partnership so produced.

The only explanation as to why these documents so brutally ignore President Carter's plea is that there appears to be a belief that America, with its fuel resources and uranium supplies, is proffering a policy which is not noble but selfish, one which poses not the selfless view but a view that is inappropriate to the European situation, with Europe being faced with the possibility of an energy gap and an uncertain uranium supply.

Therefore, why, before running helter-skelter down this road to reprocessing, does not the Community test and explore the clear offer by President Carter that the United States is ready to increase its production capacity for enriched uranium to provide an adequate and timely supply of nuclear fuel for foreign needs?

The appointment of the proposed committee, with its suggested terms of reference, would mean that if Britain participated it would be turning its back upon the United States offer. If the committee's terms of reference showed any awareness of the Carter alternative, one would be ready to take a different attitude to our involvement in such a committee. Certainly, nothing in the document persuades me that in this or in any other respect the terms of reference have been thought through.

It is difficult not to believe that the reason for the refusal by the Commission to face up to the real hazards of proliferation, which President Carter has pinpointed and which are linked with reprocessing, can be found in the Secretary's of State's explanatory memorandum, which states: The communication also refers to nonproliferation, which is a subject a number of member States believe to be outside the Commission's competence. That is a cryptic sentence. Does the Secretary of State mean that France, which is going ahead to sell a reprocessing plant to Pakistan, is determined to allow no intervention or inquiry, even elliptically, into its military nuclear programme and that it prefers to insist that nonproliferation is outside the Commission's competence and cannot, therefore, be raised? This country should not be subservient to such French Government arrogance.

It is nonsense to enter a committee which will deal with reprocessing but ignore proliferation and the American efforts to arrest it. It would be wiser to take action that would respond to the action of the French workers and their unions at Cap La Hague who, being aware of the dangers, are protesting that they do not wish to be involved in the reprocessing of overseas fuel.

I turn to the second document on fast breeders. How can we subscribe to an invitation to endorse the proposal that the Commision should ask the Council to agree that the demonstration of fast breeder technology by industry should continue without interruption? Such a suggestion flies in the face of the opinion which was expressed by both sides of the House on Friday. From what the Secretary of State has said, I am sure that it is a view with which he cannot agree. I am sure that he will stress the need for our own preliminary inquiries.

The House is indebted to the Secretary of State for having made it unequivocally clear that there can be no question of allowing our fate to be determined by what appears to be an attempt to preempt the delicate and dangerous decisions which we shall have to make. The manner in which the Secretary of State expressed his view and reservations means that when he goes to the meeting next week the House will expect him to resist any attempt to hustle this country into a plutonium economy.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

I should like to call four other hon. Members to take part in the debate. If they take five minutes each, I shall be able to accommodate them.

1.4 p.m.

Mr. George Thomson (Galloway)

I spoke during the debate on Friday, but a study of the document on the Community plan of action for dealing with radio active wastes has made me even more concerned than I was then. I wonder whether the ordinary people of the United Kingdom will ever hear of this debate. It is late at night and I doubt whether the subject will be properly reported in the daily newspapers, either tomorrow or on Friday. The debate should be reported, because this is a vital matter.

The explanatory memorandum states: managing and storing radioactive waste to ensure the safety of the public and protection of the environment is one of the major problems in developing nuclear energy. I agree with that. We would all agree with it. On the same page, it is stated: Legislation might be required to set up disposal sites. I hope that it will be required so that this House will be able to debate the matter.

I agree with the explanatory memorandum's statement on page 2 that the political, social and environmental implications of the Commission's proposal that one country should be the repository for another Member State's radioactive waste are of such importance that the most careful studies are required before this proposal can be given further consideration. As hon. Members who were here will recall, on Friday I was particularly concerned about test borings in South-West Scotland. I was afraid, and remain afraid, that those borings, if they prove satisfactory, will eventually be used as an excuse for setting up a nuclear waste repository in our country. I put the point again that the Scottish people do not control their own land. It is this House and the Government in Whitehall who do so at the moment.

I do not want to see the periphery of Europe used for the network of storage sites that is spoken of in the document. If we have no control in face of the United Kingdom Government, what control can we hope to have in face of the faceless bureaucrats of the EEC? Only Scottish independence can save us from this fate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Hon. Members may shout "Rubbish" and screw up their faces as much as they like, but this is the truth of the matter and it is a truth that will come home to the people of Scotland.

We are told on page 13 of the document that efficacious information is essential. Who is to provide the information and who is to guarantee its truth? We have already seen the smooth men who come down with their smooth faces to tell us in South-West Scotland what we are to think on this matter, and we have judged on them.

I agree that the work in South-West Scotland is at the moment research and that would be acceptable if we could be sure that it would stop at that. But how can we be sure that that is the case? Assurances even from the right hon. Gentleman now cannot guarantee us in the future, because Governments change and we might have an iron Government coming in. I therefore say to the House and the Community that we in the south-west of Scotland will simply not have it, now or ever.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) intends, I am sure, to give a practical demonstration of what he considers to be a reasonable length of speech.

1.8 a.m.

Mr. Peter Hardy (Rother Valley)

We heard with interest what the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Thompson) said about South-West Scotland. What worries me is that if members of the Scottish National Party make speeches in Caithness they are likely to take an entirely different view of the whole nuclear debate. I am aware of the debate in that part of Scotland. It is time that the SNP began to speak with one voice on this very important issue.

Mr. Thompson

I speak with one voice.

Mr. Hardy

I shall not indulge in an argument with the hon. Gentleman.

So far, the debate has concentrated, seriously and properly, on the nuclear aspects. There are many documents before us, but I want specifically to refer to Document No. 2348/77 dealing with consumption levels. According to the document, the Western European countries consumed more energy in 1976 than they did in 1975—and that despite the throes of the recession by which OECD countries were affected. This suggests to me that, if the efforts of all parties in Western Europe are successful in taking us out of the recession, we shall find the Western world requiring more energy in a few years' time than it does today.

My right hon. Friend is right to exercise caution and ensure that there is a public debate on nuclear policy. That is essential. Debate is better than uproar. But the fact remains that the ordinary people of the Western world and this country in particular want to enjoy a higher standard of life and expect their elected politicians to provide them with it. The people in my constituency and in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) want to enjoy tomorrow the same sort of improved standard of living that he enjoys today. Therefore, it behoves politicians today to ensure that the nuclear option remains open.

Caution—yes; but certainty of improved living standards is essential. That is why I believe that Document No. R/2348/77 needs to be considered along with the information provided in the other documents.

This is an excessively short debate. That ought to be the subject of consideration among those responsible for organising the business of the House. They might like to try to provide information about one or two other items in the documents. For example, in Document No. R/1955/77 I see three particular projects listed for support. Application 49/77 is a proposal from David Brown Vosper (Offshore) Limited to save gas. Application 06/77 is an application from British Petroleum on secondary recovery—a very important matter which is recommended for support. Application 39/77, again from BP, which I think can be included in the public sector, deals with through-flow-line technology to ensure at least environmental protection in offshore activity. They deserve the consideration of the House.

I regret that we do not have time to consider these important matters.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) certainly teaches precept by example. He has taken exactly three minutes.

1.11 a.m.

Mr. John Biffen (Oswestry)

The Secretary of State, in a rather disarming and felicitous fashion, said that he was going to Brussels next week and that he would like to be reinforced by the opinions which would be expressed in the House. I gladly take part in that teach-in.

There are three points that I should like the Secretary of State to convey to his colleagues in the Council of Ministers. The first is that in the decision-taking processes concerning energy, which is now so fundamental to the development of society and of increasing public concern, authority must be seen to be retained and ultimately to reside in this House. The right hon. Gentleman will be in Brussels as a representative of this House in the Council of Ministers and will be anxious, I hope, to use the mechanisms of this House as the democratic and legislative basis in the Community decision-taking process. I think that that is a view that he can offer courteously and, I hope, persuasively to his colleagues.

Secondly—this point arises from the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman)—the energy situation in the United Kingdom is substantially different from that in other Community countries. It may be a matter of some irritation. The same seems to be true of fisheries and of other areas of public debate within the Community. We delude ourselves, however, if we deny that there are sharply differing characteristics about our foreseeable energy resources and the demands that are likely to be made upon them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton said, it means that we are not in the same tight energy situation as a number of Continental European countries. As a consequence, even where there are collaborative projects, including the nuclear field, the time scales on which we shall be thinking are quite likely to be somewhat different from the time scales on which our prospective partners are thinking.

The conclusion that I draw from this is that the most likely productive development of policy in respect of energy within the Community is the clear establishment of what are the characteristics of the policies of national Governments, and then to see what extent those can fit within the complementary framework of the alliance that is constituted within the European Community.

The third point that I hope the Secretary of State will convey—I say that because I think there is an element of bipartisanship in this debate—is that the Commission documents are redolent with emphasis upon a nuclear option which is profoundly repugnant to Members of this House. None of us denies that nuclear energy is already making, and certainly will continue to have to make, a very major contribution to our total energy supplies. But there is a startling imperative which runs through the Commission documents. I prefer the words But at my back I always hear Times winged chariot hurrying near. in the charming context of Herrick addressing his mistress rather than the Commission addressing the Council of Ministers. The right hon. Gentleman might like to draw their attention to that analogy if the evening gets rather long and tedious.

The desire for public debate, participation and persuasion, which lies at the heart of the democratic process, is challenged by the insistence on speed, which will ensure that decisions are taken of such a magnitude that they cannot then be aborted in the light of subsequent evidence and revised judgment. Those making the decisions are those who today exercise power, and they are unwilling to share that power more widely. Therefore, I hope that when he goes to Brussels the Secretary of State will be able to persuade his ministerial colleagues in the Council that there is genuine apprehension in this country along the lines I have just indicated but that we do not believe that such apprehension is in any way inconsistent with the fraternal working of the Community.

1.16 a.m.

Mr. David Penhaligon (Truro)

Because of the time, I shall concentrate on one particular subject, which follows on very well from what the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) said. The real reason why Europe has such a protest movement about nuclear power, and Britain has the nucleus of one, is that Europe has already committed itself totally to the nuclear option. All the documents that I read—and the documents before us are not that much different from others we have read before—lead one to that view.

I should like to show how difficult is the closing of the circle on the nuclear option and how far Europe, despite concentrating on the matter for a long time, is from closing that circle. The articles that I read in various newspapers show that the waste disposal scenario is no nearer completion than it was many years ago. It was said 15 years or so ago that the answer was to glassify the waste, to drill great holes in South-West Scotland or some other granite outcrop, such as Cornwall, put the waste in a steel container, place the container 400ft. or 500ft. below the surface and then pour cement on top. The industry told us at the time that it was possible to glassify the waste in large lumps, and it went as far as doing it with pellets.

I understand that no real progress has been made since. In my county, tests are being carried out to discover the heat dissipation characteristics of granite. Such fundamental research has not been done, though we are entering the third decade of nuclear technology.

Unless the circle is closed, there will be a continuing build-up of opposition in this country. There is no doubt that Europe is on the verge of opposition building up to the extent that the nuclear option, stated in its papers to be the clear and only solution to all its problems, will be overrun by public opinion. This country has not taken that risk so far. We have controlled the whole matter much better. We have been much slower in going into it and there have been more public inquiries and consultation.

I ask the Minister to ask the people who have control of the research budgets in Europe and this country greatly to increase the percentage spent on closing the waste disposal circle. If that problem cannot be solved, public opposition will continue to grow and the whole industry will one day be flattened by a steamroller.

1.20 a.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley (Sheffield, Heeley)

The logic of these documents is quite shattering in its naivety and simplicity. It is that oil is finite, outside our control, highly expensive and may become more expensive. The salvation, therefore, is in nuclear power. Uranium is also outside our control and may become scarce. The fast breeder reactor is therefore the answer. That is the logic of these energy documents.

The way in which some of the difficulties of nuclear power and the fast breeder reactor are treated is quite staggering. I refer to Document No. A/1907/77, page 4, where, in speaking about the problems of radioactive waste, it says that the very long-term radiological risks (future generations) will arise mainly from certain long-lived radioactive wastes. Programmes in progress point to the existence of promising solutions for the isolation of these wastes from the biosphere"— ignoring completely that there is absolutely no concensus among experts as to exactly how these wastes shall be dealt with, where they shall be put and what shall be done with them.

A similar point arises in regard to the dangers of terrorism. On page 5 of the same document, it is stated that The risk of plutonium being used for purposes other than that of a reactor fuel can be overcome by adequate and effective measures relating to the supervision of end-use and physical protection"— just like that; no difficulty whatsoever.

My main point, however, relates to the very casual and contemptuous rejection of alternative renewable sources of energy. I refer specifically to Document No. R /1958/77, page 2, where it says that As far as other new energy sources are concerned (solar, geothermal, etc.), their contribution up to the end of the century, though useful, cannot be considered very significant (about 5 per cent.). That is it in regard to the alternative sources. It seems to ignore the fact that, after 30 years and billions of pounds of expenditure on scientific and engineering research into nuclear power, that source of energy is giving us only 2.1 per cent. now. The alternative renewable sources have a better track record than nuclear power by any reckoning.

What is extraordinary about this dismissal of alternative renewable sources is that in France, for example, some very advanced studies are being made of solar power. In Italy there are quite important sources of geothermal power. Denmark is extremely interested in wind power. In the United Kingdom we are investing money in wave and tidal power. In certain countries of the EEC there are very considerable potentialities for hydroelectric power. These sources are there and are being explored. People are taking more and more interest in them.

Despite this, these documents go blithely ahead and, as I said at the beginning of my speech, their simple and naive logic is that, as oil is finite and there is not enough uranium, the answer must be the fast breeder reactor.

I ask my right hon. Friend, when he goes to Brussels next Tuesday, to point out to the Commission that these alternative sources have enormous potential. If one-tenth of the effort in money, time and scientific and engineering manpower were to be devoted to them in the next 20 years, they would show a far better and far safer return to mankind than anything we have had yet from nuclear power.

1.24 a.m.

Mr. Peter Rost (Derbyshire, South-East)

In the few minutes left before we have to conclude the debate, I shall refer to only two points. I was rather disappointed that the Secretary of State appeared to take a rather too negative line on the proposals in the documents. We should try to get together a little more on collaborative research and development. That is very much the fundamental issue in these documents.

If the Secretary of State is genuine in his wish to find long-term solutions for the energy problems, including the nuclear and the fast breeder option, surely he should not be saying that, because we have not made up our minds in this country whether to do it, we really cannot get involved with collaborative research and development in Europe. It should be the other way round. We should welcome that there are opportunities to do it perhaps more quickly, more safely and at less cost if we get together on it. After all, we are spending £60 million a year now on fast breeder research and development. Why should we not be getting together on it and trying to do it in a more sensible way?

The same applies to the research and development of waste disposal and to reprocessing. We should be getting together to try to solve these problems. A more constructive approach from the Secretary of State in Europe might be more helpful than the impression that we have had tonight.

My second point relates to the document on the energy mix for 1985. The EEC says quite clearly that although it is three years since the first recommendations, and four years since the energy crisis, not enough has been done to get energy conservation moving. That criticism is clearly made.

I therefore ask the Secretary of State what we have done to pull our weight and to play our part in the genuine consensus in Europe that we should be doing more in this direction.

1.26 a.m.

Mr. Neil Macfarlane (Sutton and Cheam)

This time of night is all too familiar for those of us who take an interest in energy matters. It is a tragedy and nothing short of a travesty, that one cannot do other than make speeches at breakneck speed in order to try to impart briefly our expertise towards the Secretary of State as he tries to ensure that EEC energy policy develops.

The documents have revealed a widely varying series of important issues. It is a very great tragedy that we have to debate all these energy subjects which are embraced under one heading and at such a late hour. These subjects are of vital importance, and I hope that the Secretary of State will let it be known to his colleagues in the Cabinet—we shall do so—that we want more time to discuss these matters, because they are of critical importance.

The particular subject that we are debating tonight plays a central part in the national economy and in national planning, not only in our own country but in the EEC. I want to address my brief remarks to the consultative document No. R/2347/77, but that does not mean that I am ignoring the importance of the nuclear argument which has been made tonight. However, that argument, has occupied most of the comments made during the debate and we widely debated that subject last Friday at some length.

It was a great pity that Document No. R/2347 was not discussed at the Council of Energy Ministers on 25th October, because the Secretary of State indicated in his memorandum to the House that it would be discussed. This discussion paper underlines an aspect that gives real cause for disquiet and confirms that the Government—perhaps not alone of Governments—are complacent on certain energy matters in Europe.

The document states that the present picture is one of a "fairly calm energy market" in the Community. That may be true at the moment, but when that kind of picture is presented I have the fear that we may well find that many Ministers in the EEC have decided they do not want to rock the boat by trying to shape public opinion to accept some of the harsher measures if we are to avoid the energy gap which is prophesied in some energy quarters in the next 25 or 30 years.

It may be that Ministers are members either of minority Governments or of coalition Administrations and are conscientiously and anxiously looking over their shoulders at domestic public opinion and impending elections. Fortunately, however, the paper goes on to point out that this "calm" picture should not cause the basic medium and long-term problems to be overlooked. They may well be being overlooked because the document was not discussed at the Council. I should like to know why it was not discussed at the meeting on 25th October when the Secretary of State had indicated in his memorandum that it would be discussed.

I draw the attention of the House to two aspects. First, the first half of 1977 shows increased consumption of 2.5 per cent. compared with the same period in 1976 and draws into question the effectiveness of the EEC energy savings policy. Second, I turn to the potential problems with Community nuclear programmes. During the first six months of 1977 there was a marked increase in the production of nuclear energy to the tune of 26 per cent. That is a very significant figure. The trend is there both in the Community and in our own national requirements for nuclear power.

In the United Kingdom, nuclear demand, given the continuity of a 3 per cent. annual growth rate, must grow very swiftly during the years leading to the end of this century and certainly beyond. If the EEC and our Government fail to recognise the importance of nuclear power, they must, in effect, be saying that they accept either a lower annual growth rate of economic development or a return to large-scale imports of fossil fuels. Perhaps the Secretary of State will let us know his views on this matter.

I only hope that the nuclear hearings which began last week in Brussels will make an important contribution to diminishing some of the fears that many hon. Members have justifiably mentioned, both on Friday and again today. They are important hearings, and I hope that they will make a genuine contribution to allay some of our fears.

The second aspect of Document No. R/2347, which the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) highlighted and which I find of enormous significance, is the seventh paragraph, where President Carter's energy policy guidelines are discussed. The success or failure of the United States to reduce its dependence on oil imports is critical, and one can only applaud President Carter for the way he has sought to shape American public opinion—never an enviable undertaking—to an understanding of the principal problem. But the very high import figure—some 9 million barrels of oil per day—is very disturbing, and almost everything in this sector hangs on the United States cutting its oil imports. If it cannot do it, we are all done for in Western industrialised societies.

I turn to Document No. R/1959, which, amongst other aspects, touches on the Commission's desire to remove 140 million tons from refining capacity. Although the whole question of refining and distillation surplus in Europe is an important subject as we approach the 1980s, I think it very doubtful that we shall hear much more about it for some time. Perhaps the Secretary of State will refer to this. The figures are questionable. Voluntary action by oil companies brings into account anti-trust and competition law reasons, and I cannot see the oil industry agreeing to take this action in the near future. The problems in the Continental countries are different from our own. Whereas we have a refining surplus, we do not have a cat-cracking surplus, because of the different nature of the oil in the North Sea and the problems facing imports from OPEC countries.

The document also includes member States' forecasting of future energy production and consumption up to 1985. It is this aspect to which I want to turn for a few concluding minutes. The purpose of the document is to highlight some shortcomings in national programmes. Our own energy programme has considerable shortcomings which are fast emerging.

The argument that nuclear power can be replaced by benign sources before the year 2000 is an argument which, alas, the realist has to ignore. In an ideal world it might be possible, but the slowness of research and development programmes, both here and in the rest of the Community, shows that to expect conventional power stations to be generating electricity by non-conventional sources is stretching the imagination. I, who am a devotee of the Severn Barrage principle, realise that the feasibility project could take years before the Government were in a position to make a proper decision.

The danger signs are there for the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State must make some all-important decisions. He has spent far too long in avoiding many of them. He knows that coal production is declining annually. He knows that North Sea oil production has a limit. He knows that the demand for gas will not diminish. He knows that Britain's nuclear capacity must expand. Yet all that seems to happen is that we get more committees and working parties.

The principle of working parties and committees may be of benefit. but it is clear for all to see that while most of the committees or working parties may have the best brains summoned and could well be a modest contribution to open government, they do not seem to meet too often once they have been created.

We have the Advisory Council on Energy Conservation in Industry and Commerce, which has met only four times. We have the Chief Scientist's Requirements Board, which has met only three times in 1977. We have the Combined Heat and Power Group, which has met only three times. The Energy Thrift Committee has not met at all. MISER, which is the Methodology of Industrial Sector Energy Requirements, met in October.

I am sorry that Government Ministers are over-anxious about the statistics, but they must face up to the fact that they are there. This seems to me to be one gigantic public relations hoax.

I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us that he recognises the importance of energy conservation, and I hope that sometime in the future he will speak at length on the importance of the EEC combining on energy policy and on the importance of restoring Britain's reputation in Europe.

1.37 a.m.

Mr. Benn

I sympathise with the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane), who obviously wanted to make political points. He had to shorten them so that they appeared less credible than perhaps they would have done had he made them at length.

I was asked why the papers that we thought would be discussed at the last meeting were not dealt with. They were not reached because of other business which lasted so long. I was also asked about the famous unpublished document, and one hon. Member referred to it as my document. It was not my document. It was a Commission working paper, and it was not published because the Commission did not want it to be published.

On the nuclear arguments, there was not much division on the question of whether they should be nuclear power. Not one hon. Member said that we should abandon it or that benign sources should replace it. One hon. Member made the point that, if one is continually put under artificial pressure to make decisions, one is prevented from giving any measure of thought to the matter. If I had given the impression that I was pointing my finger at others, I can only say that I was not. All over the world—in the United States, Sweden and other countries as well as the EEC—there is anxiety about the way in which nuclear decisions are handled.

I make no apology for the publication of information from independent inquiries. The attitude adopted towards dissenters—whether they are regarded as subversives or as serious people—and the ministerial responsibilities and decisions and hearings that are not manipulated are matters to be considered. I do not want to hold a hearing in order to brainwash someone who does not agree with me. These are the factors in determining whether nuclear policy will be acceptable. "More haste, less speed" is a saying that might be considered in this context.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North-East (Mr. Palmer) was less than just on Windscale. Two years ago I specially asked the Select Committee to look at Windscale. My hon. Friend took the view that it was not right to do so. But 18 months before the inquiry was launched I asked him whether the Select Committee could find time to look at the reprocessing problem. To say tonight that I am shielding behind the Secretary of State for the Environment is doing me less than justice.

Mr. Palmer

On that occasion I told the Secretary of State that if he wrote to the Select Committee I would put his letter before it. He did not write.

Mr. Benn

My recollection was that my hon. Friend felt that this was not a subject that was appropriate for discussion. He is slightly less than just in suggesting that I prevented the matter from being raised in the Select Committee.

It is a mistake to link waste disposal with Scottish nationalism. Scottish waste also must go somewhere, and it might be pushed in the direction of the constituency of the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Thompson). I cannot possibly allow Community waste to be put here by a Community decision without the House determining the matter for itself.

As for conservation, I can say no more than that there will be a statement next week, and I think the House agrees that it will be a statement of some importance.

This has been a late debate, but it has been a full and helpful one from my point of view because every hon. Member who has taken part has entered into the general spirit of being co-operative and helpful in discussing the harmonisation and sharing of costs but in not wishing to yield too much in terms of the basic decision, not from Britain to the Community but from democratic to bureaucratic control. That has been the spirit of this debate.

I said on an earlier occasion that I would send the Hansard report of our proceedings to Community members, and I was rebuked for that suggestion, but I do not think it would be a bad thing if that could be done on this occasion in time for next week when we meet the other EEC Ministers. They would then know that when contributions are made in this House on these EEC subjects they are not made in any party or anti-European spirit but are aimed at putting forward the views of the House of Commons, at whatever hour that may occur. They will then learn that these energy matters are quite properly taken very seriously indeed.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House takes note of Commission Documents Nos. R/1955/77, R/1959/77, R/ 2347/77, R/2348/77 and R/2594/77 on Energy Policy and R/1901/77, R/1956/77 and R/ 1958/77 on Nuclear Energy.