§ Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many person days per annum safeguards inspectors from(a) Euratom and (b) the International Atomic Energy Agency have spent at Sellafield since December 1993; if she will list the facilities inspected; and if she will list the reports arising from the application of safeguards at Sellafield over this time. [19886]
§ Mr. WilsonThe safeguards provisions of the Euratom Treaty apply to all civil material in the UK and the Euratom Safeguards Office therefore inspects all parts of the BNFL Sellafield facility where such material is located. Since 1994 these inspections have involved between 1,400 and 1,750 person days of inspection each year. Reports on Euratom Safeguards Office activities are published periodically by the European Commission, most recently in July of this year (report reference COM(2001)436 final, accessible at the website of the European Parliament—Department of Trade and Industry Explanatory Memorandum 11669–01 refers).
In addition to ongoing Euratom Safeguards Office inspections, civil material at UK nuclear facilities is subject to the terms of the tripartite safeguards agreement between the UK, Euratom and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under which the IAEA designates certain civil UK nuclear facilities, or parts of them, for inspection. In the period in question, the IAEA has chosen to inspect the following parts of the BNFL Sellafield facility: the THORP Fuel Receipt and Storage area, the Special Nuclear Materials Store 9, the Oxide Fuel Storage Ponds, and the THORP Plutonium Store. The number of person days of inspection effort involved in these inspections has reduced from some 290 per year in 1994 to about 190 in 2000—reflecting moves by the IAEA to focus its efforts on the facility's major plutonium storage areas. Reporting on IAEA safeguards activities is included in the IAEA' s Annual Reports (accessible at the IAEA' s website).