§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for Energy what studies have been undertaken by his Department in the five years since the Chernobyl accident to evaluate the long-term costs of a nuclear accident, in the United Kingdom or nearby continential Europe, involving the equivalent energy and radiation release as occured in the Soviet accident.
§ Mr. Heathcoat-AmorySince the Chernobyl accident, the approach of the United Kingdom Government and nuclear industry has been to concentrate on ensuring that the high standards of safety employed in the design, construction and operation of United Kingdom nuclear installations are maintained. These standards mean that the likelihood of any accident at a United Kingdom nuclear plant resulting in a significant off-site release of radioactivity is extremely small. The chance of an accident involving a release on the scale of that which occurred at Chernobyl is widely acknowledged as being considerably more remote.
Extensive programmes of research and development funded both by Government and the nuclear industry are being carried out to underpin the maintenance of the United Kingdom's high safety standards.
Despite the extremely low chance of an accident on the scale of Chernobyl at a United Kingdom nuclear installation, the Government have thoroughly reviewed nuclear emergency planning arrangements since the Chernobyl accident. In collaboration with the safety regulatory authorities, the industry, and other bodies involved in emergency planning at both central and local level, a number of improvements have been put in place. These should ensure a continuation of high standards of emergency planning for responding to a nuclear accident. and protecting the public from any consequences.
There is no reason to suppose that the standard of safety adopted in nearby continental Europe are any less rigorous than those applied in the United Kingdom, and international conventions on early notification provide for early warning of events likely to have trans-boundary 621W consequences. The Department of the Environment has developed a national response plan to provide a framework for dealing with any consequences for the United Kingdom of an overseas accident; it includes the establishment of a nationwide network of monitoring stations, the Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network, RIMNET, designed to detect independently any radioactivity arriving in this country.