§ Mr. Cookasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list all the past and present major activities carried out at the British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. Risley establishment and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority's Harwell establishment; and whether they were or are directed towards civil or military ends.
§ Mr. Norman LamontBritish Nuclear Fuels Ltd's Risley establishment is the head office of the company, providing normal administrative controls, and houses the principal engineering design functions for the company's capital expenditure programme. These activities are in support of the main activities of BNFL, which are largely directed towards the civil nuclear power programmes. Some work related to contracts for the Ministry of Defence is carried out but this represents only a small fraction of the total activity on the site, and has done so for many years past.
The UKAEA's Harwell establishment has for many years concentrated on activities related to civil applications of nuclear technology and more recently on non-nuclear applications of expertise evolved in the nuclear field. Inevitably some of the facilities and expertise at Harwell in the nuclear field can have military application as well as civil and where it is in the public interest to do so some of the work has been directed to such ends. But such activities do not represent a major part of the total programme and are carried out under contract to the appropriate military establishment.
The annual reports for BNFL and the UKAEA, which are available in the House of Commons Library, give details of these organisations' past and present activities.