§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths)The Department will be placing the figures for the United Kingdom's stocks of civil plutonium and uranium as at 31 December 2003 in the Library of the House. In accordance with our commitment under the "Guidelines for the Management of Plutonium", we will also be sending the figures to the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who will circulate them to Member States in due course. The figures will be available on the Department's and the IAEA's websites.
2WSThe figures show that stocks of unirradiated plutonium in the UK totalled 96.3 tonnes at the end of 2003. Changes from the corresponding figures for 2002 are a consequence of continuing reprocessing operations (e.g. as reflected in the increased quantity of "unirradiated separated plutonium in product stores at reprocessing plants"). Other smaller changes are the result of material being allocated to UK fuel. The decrease in unirradiated separated plutonium held elsewhere is due to both Thorp and magnox reprocessing plants being close to empty during December 2003 whereas they were operating over that period in the proceeding year. The decrease in the civil depleted, natural and low enriched uranium figures reflects the change in requirements for these materials at the fuel fabrication plants and reactors.