§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate she has made of the cost of managing nuclear waste in each of the next 10 years. [140957]
§ Ms HewittThe cost of managing Britain's civil public sector nuclear waste is included within the estimated total of nuclear liabilities which currently stand at around £48 billion. Reliable estimates of annual costs are hard to identify as there remains considerable uncertainty surrounding both the total of the liabilities, and the ongoing operational imperatives and constraints at individual nuclear sites. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which is intended to be operational from April 2005, will need to establish more certainty on the overall liabilities and annual costs. To this end the government has already started preparation of lifecycle baselines for NDA sites that will provide the basis for estimating the costs of clean up going forward. The NDA will be operating within the overall framework of Government policy on decommissioning and waste management and will need to manage the clean up programme accordingly.
In the longer term, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) will make recommendations to ministers about the long-term strategy for managing UK radioactive waste.