HC Deb 19 December 1997 vol 303 cc342-3W
Mr. Llew Smith

To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to her answer of 24 November 1997,Official Report, column 419, if she will make a statement on the number of inspection visits made by Euratom safeguards inspectors to each (a) facility and (b) material balance area at (i) Sellafield and (ii) Dounreay in each year since 1988; and if she will list the annual total of safeguards inspection person-days for each year in this period committed to United Kingdom nuclear facilities by (1) Euratom and (2) International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. [20778]

Mrs. Roche

Reports on the operation of Euratom safeguards are published periodically by the European Commission. These reports include information on typical Euratom safeguards inspection effort both by country and by type of installation.

The most recent Euratom report, published in 1994, contains figures for total inspection effort in the UK for the years 1989–92. Figures for subsequent years have also been published, most recently in a paper presented at the IAEA Safeguards Symposium held in Vienna in October 1997 (a copy of which will be placed in the Library of the House). These figures show Euratom safeguards inspection effort in the UK rising from slightly under 2,000 person days in 1989 to just over 3,000 person days in 1996. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) do not themselves routinely publish corresponding figures for their inspections in the UK, the information they have provided to us shows that such effort has ranged between approximately 400 and 670 person days per year for the period in question.

In the case of both Sellafield and Dounreay there is essentially continual Euratom inspector presence. The detailed information sought on numbers of Euratom safeguards inspection visits to Sellafield and Dounreay since 1988 is not included in the Commission's reports and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Copies of the Commission's 1994 report and of its reports for previous years have been placed in the Library of the House.