§ Mr. CoakerTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will published the international guidelines on the management of civil plutonium. [19121]
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§ Mr. BattleI have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of a document recently agreed among an informal group of nine countries, including the United Kingdom, entitled "Guidelines for the Management of Civil Plutonium". The UK has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its intention to adopt these guidelines.
The background to the guidelines has been a general wish by some countries to improve transparency and public confidence in the management of national holdings of civil plutonium. Agreement was reached in the informal group, comprising the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, Japan, Belgium and Switzerland, to publish guidelines that would provide an internationally-accepted framework for the management of civil plutonium. Under the guidelines, participating countries accept a new commitment to publish occasional statements explaining their national strategies for nuclear power and the nuclear fuel cycle, and, against that background, their general plans for managing national holdings of plutonium, together with annual figures for their holdings of unirradiated plutonium and of plutonium contained in spent fuel as at the end of each calendar year.
The UK has for the past 11 years published information on its national holdings of civil plutonium annually as at 31 March. In keeping with the guidelines, the UK will in future be publishing such information annually as at 31 December, as this will facilitate international comparisons on a consistent basis.
I have also today placed in the Library of the House a copy of the first set of figures for the UK under the new format showing national holdings as at 31 December 1996. Figures for our holdings as at 31 December 1997 will be published in June 1998.