§ Baroness Turner of Camdenasked Her Majesty's Government:
What work for the Ministry of Defence will be undertaken at the BNFL Magnox facility at Berkeley Centre in Gloucestershire. [HL3250]
§ Lord GilbertA programme of work will be carried out at the Berkeley Centre on a small quantity of nuclear material owned by the Ministry of Defence and held outside international safeguards. The term unsafeguarded means that the nuclear material involved is outside the scope of our international agreements under which civil nuclear material in the UK is subject to inspection by Euratom and, if they so choose, the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA. The Berkeley Centre has previously only worked with safeguarded material, as it has not been involved in military nuclear programmes, which are unsafeguarded. The work is essential to meet a clear requirement to provide assurance of the continued safe operation of submarine nuclear reactors, and it is not connected with the nuclear weapons programme. The facilities to be used are unique to the Berkeley Centre. The work, which is a short study, will take about seven months to complete. Upon completion of the study and the removal of the unsafeguarded material the Berkeley Centre will return to its fully safeguarded status.