NIREX Rock Characterisation Facility (Hansard, 27 February 1995)

§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Viscount Ullswater)
My Lords, the Secretary of State for the Environment has today issued, under the provisions of Rule 6(10) of the Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1992, a statement of the matters about which he particularly wishes to be informed for the purpose of his consideration of the appeal by NIREX against Cumbria County Council's refusal of planning permission. I have arranged for details of the statement to be circulated in the Official Report and for a copy of it to be placed in the Library.

§ Lord Beaumont of Whitley
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for that helpful reply. 1302 Will the Government make sure that all the points raised by Cumbria County Council are open to discussion? Secondly, will they also ensure that all questions raised by the Royal Society report—The disposal of radioactive waste in deep repositories—of November 1994 on the evaluation of the NIREX scientific programme will be considered by the public inquiry?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, the list of issues about which the Secretary of State wishes to be informed for the purposes of the consideration of the appeal is not a straitjacket. It does not prevent other matters being raised at the inquiry, such as those put forward by Cumbria County Council. It is for the inquiry's inspector to decide on their relevance and whether he should permit evidence to be called on other matters.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that that will be a public inquiry in the full sense of the term and that there will be no restrictions?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, it is a normal planning appeal inquiry. We believe that it provides adequate opportunities for interested parties to make known their views and for relevant issues to be explored fully and appraised carefully before a decision is reached.

§ Lord Cavendish of Furness
My Lords, I declare an interest as a director of United Kingdom NIREX Limited. Is my noble friend aware that, as Cumbria County Council has pointed out, the proposed rock characterisation facility is intended to be for research only and is not to be a licensed nuclear facility? Does my noble friend agree that in finding a safe disposal site for radioactive wastes, knowledge is required to establish whether or not the geology is suitable? That is precisely why a rock characterisation facility is needed.

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, yes, I agree with my noble friend Lord Cavendish. The RCF is intended for the purpose of research to assess the geological characteristics of the area and to allow informed decisions about whether to proceed with a repository to be taken at a later date. Any plans to go ahead with a repository would be subject to separate planning applications and consultations.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that he seems to have agreed with his noble friend that the rock characterisation facility is necessary; in other words, he appears to have pre-empted the result of the public inquiry?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, it is for NIREX to decide whether it is necessary to continue with the research. That is why it has put in the planning application. If we are to go ahead with the burial of low or intermediate waste, I believe that such a research facility is required.

§ Lord Flowers
My Lords, as chairman of the Royal Commission whose report published 20 years ago led to the creation of NIREX, I have two related questions for the Minister because I am becoming somewhat 1303 confused. First, as the RCF is being considered because it will enable the properties of rock to be determined in the rock mass underneath the selected site for waste disposal, does the Minister agree that until the RCF has been constructed, measurements made and the scientific results evaluated, no inquiry can asses the suitability of the site for eventual waste disposal? Secondly, will the Minister confirm that, even if we were to abandon nuclear power altogether tomorrow and decommission all the nuclear reactors, the nuclear waste which has already accumulated would require substantial, safe underground storage?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, I believe that it is the view of scientists that some form of deep-waste disposal site is required. In answer to the noble Lord's first question, I should stress that the research has been concentrated at Sellafield where the drilling of some 25 boreholes has been tested and monitored along with a full range of regional geophysical and mapping surveys and that RCF is purely the next step. However, it is, of course, subject to planning permission.

§ Lord Beaumont of Whitley
My Lords, will the Government ensure that the names and the whereabouts of the 10 unnamed sites considered by NIREX for 1989, and the results of the investigations carried out by the company on those sites, will be available to the inquiry?

§ Viscount Ullswater
No, my Lords; I do not believe that that would be correct. After all, the inquiry is purely on the site as regards a particular form of rock characterisation. To name other sites which may have been looked at does not serve that purpose.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, in answer to two previous questions the Minister said that such a facility is necessary. However, is it not the case that a public inquiry on the application will have to take into account the issue of whether or not such a facility is necessary? Therefore, has not the Minister twice pre-empted at least one part of the issue before the public inquiry?

§ Viscount Ullswater
No, my Lords, not at all. I said that it was government policy that such a facility is necessary. The question is whether the RCF should be built at Sellafield.