Carriage of Dangerous Goods (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Carriage of Dangerous Goods (Amendment) Regulations 2019.

My Lords, this statutory instrument will change the Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2009. These regulate the transport of most dangerous goods in Great Britain, and this instrument will update the sections that deal specifically with radioactive materials.

The amendments in the instrument will strengthen Great Britain’s emergency preparedness and response arrangements for the transport of radioactive materials. They will apply to transport by rail, road and inland waterway. The changes in the instrument will bring Great Britain into step with the highest international safety standards, as they implement the emergency preparedness and response requirements of the Euratom basic safety standards directive 2013.

One of the amendments introduces provisions on the control of so-called volatile organic compounds resulting from the storage of petrol and its distribution from terminals to service stations. It corrects an unintended revocation of guidance for the design and construction of petrol tanks in respect of the control of such compounds. The other simply updates a cross-reference in the Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Regulations 2008.

On that matter, I should like to point out that, in the debate in another place, concerns were raised about the drafting of this amendment. It was suggested that the 2008 regulations had been revoked and replaced by the Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, and that this amendment therefore constituted defective drafting, which would be fatal to the SI. I am happy to confirm that the amendment in question is legally sound, as the revocation and replacement of the 2008 regulations will take effect only if the UK leaves the EU on 29 March without a deal. In this unlikely event, the amendment would simply be null and void; its nullity would have no impact on the remaining provisions of these regulations.

The department held a joint consultation with the Ministry of Defence and the Health and Safety Executive on the changes made by this instrument. We published our response to the consultation in October last year. Of 71 respondents, 31 commented on the transport-specific elements of the consultation. I am happy to report that the proposals received broad support.

I shall now briefly outline the amendments made by this instrument. We have broadened the definition of “emergency” to include risks to quality of life, property and the environment. We have also updated the principles and purposes that duty holders are to have regard to when drafting emergency plans, to ensure that plans are flexible and proportionate. We are including in the regulations a definition of “emergency worker”, with comprehensive requirements for training. We are also expanding the requirement to regularly review and test emergency plans. For civil nuclear transport, the competent authority in Great Britain, currently the ONR, will have a duty to provide information to the public about the nature and effect of a potential radiation emergency.

These regulations will introduce a national reference level and will require the carrier and consigner of radioactive materials to ensure that the emergency plan prioritises keeping radiation exposure below that level. It was alleged in another place that these regulations do not take account of the circumstances under which an emergency worker may be exposed to a maximum dose of 500 milliSieverts; I can confirm that the regulations expressly state that such exposure is possible if this worker is engaged in activities for the purpose of saving human life and with their informed consent. The new regulations also include a duty to provide a handover report to assist the transition from an emergency exposure situation to the recovery phase.

As I have mentioned, Part 2 of the regulations makes a technical update to a cross-reference in the Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Regulations. Part 3 reinstates a previously revoked provision that implements an EU directive on volatile organic compound emissions resulting from the storage of petrol and its distribution. The impact of these changes will be minimal: the main burden will be any costs associated with familiarisation with the amendments and making any revisions to emergency plans. This will be a relatively minor, one-off cost. The other two changes included in this instrument, those on volatile organic compounds and transfrontier shipment of radioactive waste, are purely technical and will have no impact on industry. I beg to move.

My Lords, I thank the Minister again for his exemplary exposition. This is a most important instrument. I look at page 5, under “Interpretation of Part 1”, and I see the words “ionising radiations”, “dose consequences”, “endangered persons”, “exposure” and,

“‘emergency services’ means those police, fire and ambulance services that are likely to be required to respond to the radiation emergency”.

I support what the Minister proposes and I will not detain the Committee but I will give an insight.

Some of your Lordships may have heard of CP Snow, a novelist who ended up in your Lordships’ House and was at one time a Minister under a trade union leader who was a Cabinet Minister, Mr Cousins. As a novelist, CP Snow wrote a series of 11 novels, Strangers and Brothers. One—which I have read, as I have the others—is relevant to these regulations, in a historical sense if no other, and might be of interest to the Minister and his able colleagues in the department who brief him.

The novel in question is The New Men, which describes, clearly based on what had happened, the consequences of an individual receiving an unwanted dosage—that is, a radiation emergency, the words in the regulation. The novel is set in north-east Wales in the small village of Rhydymwyn, where the first steps of Britain’s attempt to make an atom bomb were taken under the cover of chemical substances that were possibly to be used in war. That small village is outside Mold, the county town of Flintshire, and I have always lived within eight or nine miles of it.

Snow describes the scientists who were transplanted from their dreaming spires and assisted by university men from Liverpool and Birmingham, to name but two centres inhabited by the scientists who were making, or attempting to make, our first bomb. Noble Lords may know that the attempts were ended and went lock, stock and barrel to Los Alamos in New Mexico. A former Member of the other place wrote a tract entitled How the Americans Stole Britain’s Bomb. That is not for me to describe further.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

My Lords, I restate my question: how many shipments, if any, are by road annually? I presume that transportation is inevitably through urban centres. Is the Minister able to give us any detail or information of any responsible kind? The proposals on page 7, looking at emergency plans, are clearly well-considered and very sound, but who oversees them? What arm of the British state is responsible in the end for these emergency plans, when one takes into account the chain of command?

I referred very briefly to the village of Rhydymwyn in the county of Flintshire, where the dosages were first suffered. I conclude by telling the Committee that there was an upshot in 1979. It was a general election, and as a Minister I found myself in the wilds of Meirionnydd, not a million miles from Blaenau Ffestiniog. I was hunted in that locality by the constabulary, on the basis of urgent representations made by officials from my department at that time. They had established that in the proximity of Rhydymwyn, which was making something like mustard gas but deep in the bowels of the buildings, there was the beginnings of a trace of atomic energy. The point was: my officials told me that the road outside that factory had shown evidence of collapse, and very dangerous substance material was feared to be leaking. It did not happen, but that is the context of these words.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. I am enjoying the novelty of dealing with one that is not related to Brexit, so it is almost like a holiday among all the others.

I have three points to make. First, I welcome the extension of the definitions of an emergency. Some of those are quite subjective in their description—for example, “quality of life”. I wonder what work has gone on to make sure that an emergency is indeed an emergency, and that transporters are not exposed to unwarranted legal action through what would be described as a loose definition in the Act. What impact analysis has been done on the litigation risk around the looseness of the term?

It was very helpful that the Minister brought up the issue of whether this was in order around the Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel (EU Exit) Regulations 2018. He mentioned that these regulations would in the event automatically be nullified—“nullity”, I think, was the word he used. How is that nullifying process triggered? Is it part of an overall Bill where a group of SIs or parts of SIs are triggered? My sense is that only a part of this SI gets nullified; or is all of it nullified? What is the mechanism for the triggering of its nullification?

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, paints an interesting picture of his home village. I cannot help thinking that it must be very beautiful and he is hell-bent on keeping people out with tales of mustard gas and atomic leaks.

I am not a nationalist. Borders mean nothing to me.

There is another point to consider. Essential to this is the definition of an emergency worker. Is it someone who is predetermined as an emergency worker? We have heard of the heroic efforts of ordinary engineers and ordinary people during the massive meltdown of the Japanese reactor, and we know that in Chernobyl heroic individuals took it upon themselves to be part of an emergency exercise. Although there is a definition of emergency workers in the SI, it is clear that, if there is an emergency—let us hope it never comes to pass—individuals will become de facto emergency workers by their proximity to what is happening. They perhaps are not covered by these regulations. In any case, how do you limit these people to 500 millisieverts when they are in the middle of an emergency? They do not necessarily have monitoring equipment to hand; they are dealing with an emergency. While this is a useful limit, no emergency is planned, so unless these people are already wearing the necessary monitoring equipment, they will not be monitoring the dose; and if they are accidental emergency workers—if you follow my drift—they will not have that monitoring equipment either. I would welcome the Minister’s response to those three points.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the order before the Committee today, and for providing us with updated information on its passage in the other place. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, said that it is not entirely to do with a no-deal scenario; hence I am a little perplexed as to how this order is split—if that is the right word—into parts that will be nullified and those that will not at the relevant outcome.

I also reiterate that we found it unfortunate that Euratom was swept up into the withdrawal letter, and hence into the withdrawal agreement, and that we need to leave Euratom at the same time as we leave the EU. That is deeply regretted, but I am grateful to the Minister for his updating remarks on the order in the Commons regarding the Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Regulations 2008.

We see no issue with the order in general; however, I have noted the circumstances on which the Minister reported, and which have been taken up in other contributions around the Committee, around radioactive emergencies, notably in relation to exposure to risks for emergency workers. I welcome the consultation and the Government’s response: this does indeed strengthen the UK’s emergencies preparedness and aligns with IAEA best practice and the highest safety standards. I also welcome the fact that under the regulations the ONR has a duty to provide information to the public about the nature and effect of a potential radioactive emergency and that they introduce a national reference level below which exposure must be kept.

I put on record that it is of great benefit that there is now a duty to have a handover report to a recovery phase in any emergency and that training will be provided to give clarity to workers, including those that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked about, who might suddenly come within the bracket of the emergency regulations, though they may not necessarily have been designated as emergency workers.

My Lords, again I thank all three noble Lords for their contributions; in particular I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jones, for his insights on CP Snow, particularly The New Men. It is a long time since I read any CP Snow, but I feel that I must go back and read some.

May I recommend to the noble Lord Corridors of Power, which delineates activities here in this House?