§ Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), of 4 February 2002,Official Report, columns 748-49W, if there are exceptions to the policy of returning reprocessing wastes arising from contracts with foreign customers back to the country of origin. [36464]
§ Mr. MeacherAll BNFL's new reprocessing contracts for overseas customers since 1976 have included a provision to return the resulting wastes back to the country of origin. BNFL has proposed that it should be allowed to return an additional amount of high-level waste in substitution for a radiologically equivalent amount of intermediate and low-level waste. This proposal was referred to in the consultation paper "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely" which my Department and the devolved Administrations published in September 2001. Comments were invited on the link between waste substitution and the availability of a long-term management strategy. The consultation paper noted that BNFL is permitted to engage in waste substitution for low-level waste for which an environmentally acceptable disposal route exists