§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he will place in the Library a report of the expert proposals to the International Atomic Energy Agency conference on control of trafficking in nuclear materials held on 2 and 3 November;
(2) if he will make a statement on the proposals of the secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency on nuclear materials trafficking; and if he will list each proposal, together with the response of Her Majesty's Government to those proposals.
§ Mr. Charles WardleThe IAEA meeting on illicit trafficking held in Vienna on 2 and 3 November was called by the director general of the IAEA in response to a resolution of the IAEA general conference in September 1994.
There was no official report produced by the expert's meeting in November but the director general drew on the views expressed by the experts in preparing a report for the board in December. This proposed that the agency should:
- (i) intensify its activities in those areas in which it is already supporting member states in preventing and responding to illicit trafficking i.e.:
- —assistance with physical protection measures;
- —assistance in improvement of state systems of accounting control; and
- —assistance with analysing confiscated nuclear materials
- ii) develop a database of incidents of illicit trafficking
- iii) intensify assistance to member states to strengthen their radiation safety infrastructure, and
- iv) continue to examine activities relating to incidents of illicit trafficking.
The board received these proposals favourably and will resume its discussions of the report at its meeting in March. The Government will continue to support proposals for action which will effectively reduce the risks of illicit trafficking. In their view the agency's role in the area of physical protection should be as a focal point and a co-ordinator of bilateral activities and throughout the agency's activities clear priority should be given to work relating to safeguardable nuclear material.