§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has made a study of the relevance to the Scottish nuclear industry of the 1989 report "Plutonium Fuel: An Assessment" by an expert group of the Nuclear Energy Agency at the Organisation for Environment Co-operation and Development.
§ Mr. LangI am aware of the report. Plutonium fuels are currently in use in Scotland in the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority's prototype fast reactor at Dounreay. For technical reasons mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel is unsuitable for use in Magnox reactors. I am advised that, for economic reasons, it is unlikely to be used in advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) in Scotland.