§ 2.29 p.m.
§ Amendments reported according to Order.
§ Clause 1 [General provisions for registration of users of radioactive material]:
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I am advised that this is a drafting Amendment. Its purpose is to make it plain that the Minister can stipulate that markings conform to an accepted standard and thus introduce a system of standard markings, and not leave it to the individual to decide what markings he should apply. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 6, at end insert ("and (in either case) complying with any requirements specified in the conditions in relation thereto").—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
203§ Clause 8 [Supplementary provisions as to authorisation of disposal and accumulation of radioactive waste]:
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, this is the first of two Amendments designed to give effect to a promise made in Committee to my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross that the provisions of Clause 8 would be so amended as to promise local authorities copies of certificates of authorisation relating to the accumulation of radioactive waste in their areas, as well as of those relating to the discharge of radioactive waste. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 1, leave out from beginning to ("shall") in line 2.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSSMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Viscount very much for seeing that this Amendment is put in the Bill.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 7, at end insert ("or accumulated").—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, the effect of this Amendment is that if, before granting an authorisation covering the discharge of waste by the Atomic Energy Authority or a nuclear site licensee, the Minister or Ministers have consulted under subsection (2) with any public or local authority other than the local authorities for the area, that authority shall be entitled (subject to considerations of national security) to receive directly from the Minister a copy of the authorisation resulting from that consultation. This has, in fact, been the normal practice of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in the exercise of their powers, which are now vested in the Minister by virtue of Section 5 (4) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act, 1954. The Amendment has been put down at the request, I think, of the River Boards' Association, who have indicated they would like to see an assurance in the Bill to that effect. It goes some way, I hope, to meet some of the criticisms which the noble Lord, Lord Latham, made during the Committee stage.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 7, at end insert ("and, in the case of an authorisation to which subsection (1) of this section applies, to any other public or local authority consulted in relation thereto in accordance with subsection (2) of this section.")—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ LORD LATHAMMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Viscount for this Amendment, which meets the point that we made during the Committee stage.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I should like to say to the noble and learned Viscount that those of us who were interested in the river boards' side of the matter are very grateful for the steps which have been taken. I was asked particularly by my noble friend Lord Stansgate, who is confined to his house to-day, to say that he apologises for not being here to deal with the matter from his own point of view.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMI thank the noble Viscount very much.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 22, after ("a") insert ("public or").—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, this is another consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 24, leave out ("local").—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 10 [Additional facilities and powers for disposal of radioactive waste]:
§
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM moved, after subsection (1) to insert:
() Where, in the exercise of the power conferred by the preceding subsection, the Minister proposes to provide, or to arrange for the provision of, a place for the disposal of radioactive waste, the Minister, before carrying out that proposal, shall consult with any local authority in whose area that place would be situated, and with such other public or local authorities (if any) as appear to him to be proper to be consulted by him.")
§ The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment again arises out of Amendments of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, who at the Committee stage moved Amendments to Clauses 9 and 10 which would have had the effect of providing for consultation with the local authority before the Minister, in the exercise of his powers under Clause 10 (1), provided "facilities" for the safe disposal of radioactive wastes in their area. I informed my noble friend that the Amendments were acceptable in principle but that the Government would like to reconsider their drafting. This Amendment is designed to give effect to the general undertaking I then gave. It also provides for the Minister to consult any other public or local authority that he considers it proper to consult. River boards and water undertakers may have an interest in the drainage from dumping grounds, and the further consultation provided for is intended to help them in the like case. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 20 at end insert the said subsectiori.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSSMy Lords, I think this Amendment is an improvement, and the addition is an even greater improvement. I think that the clause is now satisfactory and I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 14 [Application of Act to Crown]:
§
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM moved, after subsection (4) to insert:
() Subsections (2) and (3) of this section shall apply in relation to any premises occupied by or for the purposes of a visiting force (that is to say, any such body, contingent or detachment of the forces of any country as is a visiting force for the purposes of any of the provision of the Visiting Forces Act, 1952) as if those premises were in the occupation of the government department by arrangement with whom the premises are so occupied.
§
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, as the Bill stands at present, its provisions as regards both the keeping and use of radioactive material and the authorisation of disposal of radioactive waste would apply to premises
206
occupied by visiting forces as though they were in private occupation. Such premises are occupied by foreign Governments, and the more normal practice is to achieve the objects of our legislation by agreement between the Governments in such cases. The Amendment is designed to secure this. It is drafted in terms (for which there is a precedent in the Clean Air Act, 1956) which ensure that any Minister by whose agreement premises are occupied by visiting forces will be under an obligation to make sure that arrangements for the control of radioactive waste discharged on or from the premises shall be as effective as if the premises were in the occupation of his own Department; that is, to make sure that, in the words which I used on Second Reading,
the same control will be applied by administrative rather than by legislative methods.
§ I need hardly tell your Lordships that the main practical application of this provision is to the premises occupied in the United Kingdom by the United States Air Force. The United States Air Force have now satisfied the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government that they do not at present dispose of any radioactive waste in the United Kingdom, and they have given an assurance that they will not do so in the future without prior agreement on our part.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 7, at end insert the said subsection.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ 2.40 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAM moved, after Clause 17 to insert the following new clause:
§ Meaning of "radioactive material", radioactive waste" and "mobile radioactive apparatus
§ ".—(1) In this Act 'radioactive material' means anything which, not being waste, is either a substance to which this subsection applies or an article made wholly or partly from, or incorporating such a substance.
§ (2) The preceding subsection applies to any substance falling within either or both of the following descriptions, that is to say,—
- (a) a substance containing an element specified in the first column of the Schedule (Specified elements) to this Act, in such a proportion that the number of microcuries of that element contained in the substance, divided by the number of grammes which the substance weighs, is a number greater than that specified in relation to that element in the appropriate column of that Schedule;
- (b) a substance possessing radioactivity which is wholly or partly attributable to a process of nuclear fission or other process of subjecting a substance to bombardment by neutrons or to ionising radiations, not being a process occurring in the course of nature, or in consequence of the disposal of radioactive waste, or by way of contamination in the course of the application of a process to some other substance.
§ (3) In paragraph (a) of the last preceding subsection the appropriate column'—
- (a) in relation to a solid substance, means the second column;
- (b) in relation to a liquid substance, means the third column; and
- (c) in relation to a substance which is a gas or vapour, means the fourth column.
§ (4) In this Act radioactive waste' means waste which consists wholly or partly of—
- (a) a substance or article which, if it were not waste, would be radioactive material, or
- (b) a substance or article which has been contaminated in the course of production, keeping or use of radioactive material, or by contact with or proximity to other waste falling within the preceding paragraph or this paragraph.
§ (5) In this Act 'mobile radioactive apparatus' means any apparatus, equipment or appliance which is radioactive material and is constructed or adapted for being transported from place to place.
§ (6) The Minister may by order vary the provisions of the Schedule (Specified elements) to this Act, either by adding further entries to any column of that Schedule or by altering or deleting any entry for the time being contained in any column thereof; and, in relation to any time after those provisions have been so varied, any reference in subsection (2) of this section to that Schedule shall be construed as a reference to that Schedule as it has effect for the time being."
§ The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I think I said on the Second Reading of this Bill that I was not myself quite content with the Definition Clause. This Amendment, together with the proposed new Schedule entitled "Specified elements" completely revises the definitions of "radioactive material" and "radioactive waste" in Clause 18, subsections (1) to (3), of the Bill as it stands. The definition of "radioactive material" in Clause 18 was based on the Report of the expert panel which was appended to the White Paper to which I referred on the occasion of the Second Reading. It provided, in effect, that "radioactive material" was, first, any material which had been rendered radioactive artificially—for example, by irradiation in a nuclear pile; and, secondly, any naturally radioactive material which, as a result of any 208 process, contained a greater concentration of radioactivity than existed in the material in nature.
§ On reviewing the second of those two arms of the definition, however, we have realised that a person holding radioactive material which comes from a natural source would not necessarily know, or be able to establish, the level of radioactivity in the parent material from which it was derived. For example, if he has a compound of uranium, the subject will not necessarily have any means of knowing from which of the world's natural uranium deposits it came, as each of these deposits is likely to have a different natural concentration of uranium. It would therefore have been correspondingly difficult to substantiate a prosecution which depended on proving that the concentration of radioactivity in a substance was greater than that possessed by the parent substance. The only way we can think of to overcome this difficulty is to list the more common naturally radioactive elements, and to specify in relation to each (in its solid, liquid and gaseous form separately) what concentration of radioactive substance it must contain before it is to be regarded as "radioactive material" for the purposes of this Bill. This is done in the new Schedule, and subsection (5) of the new clause, which I am now moving, enables the Schedule to be amended if other naturally radioactive materials come into common use, or if developments in scientific knowledge make some alteration of the specified limits of concentration desirable.
§ The concentrations specified in the new Schedule are, as regards the liquid and gaseous forms, about one-tenth of those which informed opinion regards as capable of being ingested for a lifetime without harm, and they take into account the fact that the International Commission on Radiological Protection is likely to publish revised maximum permissible levels shortly. I should perhaps explain that the concentrations are in terms of microcuries per gramme. A curie is the amount of a radionuclide in which 3.7 multiplied by 1010 disintegrations occur per second. I should explain that this disintegration is the process of spontaneous breakdown of nuclei of atoms resulting in the emission of particles. In the case of radium, this amount is one gramme, and in that 209 of strontium-90 about one two-hundredth of a gramme. I should also explain to those of your Lordships who are curious that a mircrocurie, like other micro elements, is one millionth of a curie.
§ LORD BOOTHBYMy Lords, might I ask the noble Viscount what is the effect of that?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMIt means that it has a millionth of the amount of radiation that it would have if it was a curie. We had previously attempted to avoid the use of scientific terms, but I would suggest that their introduction in this case is not necessarily a criticism of the Amendments which I support. Those who will have the most need to understand the definition will be technicians using the materials, who will be familiar with the terms used, and they are likely to prefer a scientific and precise definition to one which lawyers had thought out for their own purposes.
As the definition of radioactive waste is linked to the definition of radioactive material, natural radioactive substances whose degree of radioactivity is not sufficient to bring them within the meaning of "radioactive material" will not be caught by the controls over wastes when they are disposed of. We are, in fact, satisfied that substances with concentrations below the level specified would not produce any hazard from radioactivity, no matter what method of disposal was adopted. The opportunity is being taken to simplify the definition of "radioactive waste" in subsection (3). Subsection (4) of the new clause virtually repeats the definition of "mobile radioactive apparatus" which was contained in Clause 18 (3) of the Bill. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
After Cause 17 insert the said new Clause.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ LORD LATHAMMy Lords, I should like to welcome this Amendment, which goes some way into, shall I say, the forest of scientific understanding on this problem. As the Bill is at present drafted, I am advised that it would be almost impossible of operation. The wording would catch virtually all waterwork laboratories, even if they merely evaporated samples which contained artificial radionuclei, from fall-out or from natural sources. If they disposed of the 210 residue after evaporation, the wording of the Bill would catch so many processes as to make the measure almost unworkable. I understand that there have been somewhat prolonged discussions between the Ministry and the representatives of the statutory or local authorities, and I am sure that all of them will be encouraged that the Minister has found it possible to clarify so far as language at present understood permits of such clarification, the definition of what is radioactive material for the purposes of the Bill. It is a valiant attempt, and one can only hope that it will succeed.
§ LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCHMy Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount to explain a point which is not clear to me, at any rate? I understand this definition as relating to the proportion of radioactive material which there may be in any particular substance, and no doubt the smaller the proportion the less dangerous it is: but does it not make a difference how much of the substance you have? Although the proportion may be the same, the absolute amount of radioactive material depends upon the total quantity of the substance which you are handling; and if you have a thousand times as much of it, you have a thousand times as much radioactive material. I would be grateful if the noble Viscount would explain where the safeguard in this lies.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I think the truth is that the test of the question is whether it constitutes a hazard. Roast beef is in fact radioactive, and if you had a thousand million carcases of roast beef you would have a quantity of radioactive substance which, taken by itself, would be dangerous; but the fact is that, as it is diluted in the tissues of the roast beef, it is not dangerous. It is therefore thought that if you define the hazard by relation to the concentration you do get an approximation to the real danger. The Dispatch Box from which I am speaking now is radioactive. The point is that the radioactivity is of a very low concentration; and in order to get a quantity whose degree of radioactivity might in itself be dangerous, you would have to get so many Dispatch Boxes that I could not speak from them.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
211§ Clause 18 [Interpretation]:
§ 2.49 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, this Amendment is consequential on the new clause. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 30, leave out subsections (1) to (3).—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, it has been suggested that the words "railway wagon" imply the absence of a motive power unit. By substituting "vehicle" for "wagon", the provisions of subsection (5) will apply to any railway vehicle, whether it has its own motive power or not. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 32, leave out ("wagon") and insert ("vehicle").—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, the new paragraph (b) excludes from the application of the Bill any premises used to house a nuclear-propelled vessel, so long as the radioactive material in the vessel is there only for the purpose of the nuclear propulsion unit of the vessel. This, of course, lies in the future, but the reason is that radioactive waste from nuclear-propelled ships will need to be considered together with the other safety problems arising from the use of nuclear-propelled ships. The Government have been studying these problems and hope to make an announcement on them very shortly, which will involve separate provision by Parliament. Therefore I think it is better to keep it out of this Bill, as is now proposed. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 32, leave out from ("aircraft") to end of line 33 and insert ("if either—
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I am advised that this Amendment is purely drafting. It is to satisfy the scientific purists who claim that radioactivity is a physical phenomenon which, 212 strictly speaking, should not be described in terms of concentration, although it nearly always is. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 2, leave out ("an increased concentration of") and insert ("increased").—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 20 [Northern Ireland]:
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I am told that it will make sure that the expenses incurred by the Ministry of Health and Local Government for Northern Ireland and the Ministry of Commerce for Northern Ireland will be met out of moneys provided by the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and not, as in Clause 16, by the Parliament in Westminster. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 14, at beginning insert ("except in section sixteen of this Act,").—(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I beg to move the new Schedule, which I have already explained.
§
Amendment moved—
After the Second Schedule, insert the following new Schedule—
| ("SPECIFIED ELEMENTS | |||
| Element | Microcuries per gramme | ||
| Solid | Liquid | Gas or vapour | |
| 1. Actinium | 1×10-5 | 2×10-6 | 7×10-11 |
| 2. Lead | 1×10-5 | 1×10-7 | 3×10-9 |
| 3. Polonium | 1×10-5 | 7×10-7 | 6×10-9 |
| 4. Potassium | 9×10-4 | 2×10-5 | 3×10-6 |
| 5. Protoactinium | 1×10-5 | 9×10-7 | 3×10-11 |
| 6. Radium | 1×10-5 | 1×10-8 | 1×10-9 |
| 7. Radon | — | — | 1×10-6 |
| 8. Thorium | 1×10-5 | 1×10-6 | 6×10-10 |
| 9. Uranium | 1×10-4 | 2×10-5 | 2×10-9") |
§ —(Viscount Hailsham.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, the House has made such excellent expedition with the Radioactive Substances Bill that I understand that we have caught my noble friend Lord Dundee slightly by surprise. I trust that he will very soon be here. I can only apologise on his behalf for his having detained 213 your Lordships. It is due to the excellent expedition with which your Lordships treated me.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, may I occupy the short interregnum by saying that I sympathise very much with the Minister, because also have been guilty of absence of mind to-day and must apologise to your Lordships because I was not here in my place for the beginning of Business? I had overlooked that we were meeting at 2 instead of 2.30 o'clock. I hope that the Minister, when he comes, will feel comfort from the fact that somebody else has gone astray.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I should like to tell the noble Viscount that, although we missed him, his noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence made a most admirable substitute and I much enjoyed his speech.
§ 2.54 p.m.