Nuclear Safety (Hansard, 1 November 1995)

§ 16. Mr. Foulkes
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to ensure that safety standards are being maintained in the nuclear industry. [38665]

§ Mr. Eggar
The independent Health and Safety Executive's nuclear installations inspectorate continues to 301 monitor closely the safe operation of all UK nuclear installations. The Government will not permit any weakening of the existing regulatory regime, nor of the safety standards currently in force.

§ Mr. Foulkes
Why was the Minister so dismissive earlier of the remarks by Captain Richard Killick, who has spent a lifetime in the industry? Should he not pay serious concern to the fact that Mr. Killick is worried about nuclear safety if the Government go ahead with privatisation? If the Government nevertheless press ahead with this crazy privatisation, will it not be further evidence of their frenetic lurch to the right?

§ Mr. Eggar
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has at least tried to produce a new soundbite. That is a relief to us. He should have a word with his hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) and must try to ring the changes rather more often.
302 On the substance of the question, I would take Mr. Killick's comments rather more seriously if he had raised them with Scottish Nuclear and if he had taken them up with the nuclear installations inspectorate rather than going first to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) and the press. In my judgment, scaremongering about nuclear safety is highly irresponsible and hon. Members should have no part in it.

§ Mr. Whittingdale
Did not the worst nuclear accident that the world has ever seen occur in a state-owned nuclear power station? Does my hon. Friend agree that we already have one of the toughest safety regimes in the world governing nuclear generation and that, if anything, that regime will be made still tougher once the industry is transferred into the private sector?

§ Mr. Eggar
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. This Government will do nothing to imperil nuclear safety. The NII is the independent arbiter of the continuance of the extremely high safety standards which have been such a feature of the British nuclear industry.