Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 9
9
While the cost of decommissioning represents a substantial liability for the UK taxpayer, the NDA...
Conclusion
While the cost of decommissioning represents a substantial liability for the UK taxpayer, the NDA was keen to point out that it also raises substantial income—around £800m a year—through commercial opportunities including the export of advice, skills and technologies to other countries with nuclear sites to decommission. The NDA has provided advice to, for example, Japan in relation to the clean-up at Fukushima, Ukraine in relation to Chernobyl, as well as the US, France and Canada. It told us that the UK was a world leader in nuclear power generation from the 1950s onwards and is now a world leader in decommissioning of civil nuclear sites, providing opportunities for growth in this area that could be exploited further to increase income, particularly when working internationally.17
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Winter 2021 5.2 NDA’s forthcoming Strategy, a draft of which was recently subject to consultation, discusses the economic benefits of the NDA’s work, its support for the Nuclear Sector Deal and its strategy to support international opportunities and collaboration. 5.3 NDA’s mission is to deliver safe, sustainable and publicly acceptable solutions to the challenge of nuclear clean-up and waste management. In doing this the NDA are cognisant of the need to consider value for money to the taxpayer and the interests of the workforce and communities around its sites. 5.4 The NDA group has an annual budget of circa £3.3 billion of which around £1.9 billion flows through the supply chain. The main socio-economic impact generated by the NDA’s work comes from local wages and supply chain expenditure. NDA has a supply chain strategy that seeks to build commercial capability to maintain a resilient, sustainable, diverse, ethical and innovative supply chain that optimises value for money for the UK taxpayer when sourcing goods and services. There are many examples of companies within the UK supply chain developing techniques and equipment which they are then able to deploy on specialist work in other countries such as at Fukushima in Japan, and in other sectors. The NDA already supports the UK Nuclear Sector deal, the skills agenda for the nuclear industry and the Department for International Trade’s export agenda, 5.5 In addition, the NDA generates significant commercial income from its current operations (£789 million in financial year 2019-20) which includes revenue from our overseas reprocessing contracts amongst other sources. This income is used to offset some of the costs of the decommissioning programme. 5.6 The NDA will report on progress in this area in its annual report to provide greater transparency.