Archived press release

Government Caves In To Legal Challenge On Plutonium Secrecy

21 June 2001

The Government this afternoon conceded a key part of Friends of the Earth's legal challenge over state-owned British Nuclear Fuels plc's (BNFL) plans to start operations at the Sellafield Mixed Oxide Plant (SMP) [1] in Cumbria.

Friends of the Earth argued that Ministers acted unlawfully, by deliberately restricting the scope of the final public consultation exercise, which ended on May 23rd. FOE lodged papers on May 24th at the High Court applying for a Judicial Review over Government decisions to:

• skew the economic 'benefits' of the scheme by disregarding the £482 million of taxpayers' money spent so far, mostly on constructing the plant;
• withhold from the public an independent official report into the plant's economic viability [2]

The Treasury Solicitor has now written to FOE promising to publish the report, but with deletions to cover information which would “cause unreasonable damage

• to BNFL's commercial operation or
• to the economic case for the MOX plant itself.

FOE Legal Adviser Peter Roderick said:

“We are delighted that the Government has now given in to our entirely reasonable demand that a key report on the viability of the MOX plant should be made public before any decision on its future is taken. We still believe that the economic case for the plant has been skewed by the omission of sunk costs and this must be put right.

Friends of the Earth is also startled to see that Ministers appear to think it right to exclude information which might expose the lack of a sound economic case for the plant. We will be going through this report with a fine tooth comb to ensure that all the information the public needs for an informed debate is included.”

A copy of the Treasury Solicitor's letter is available from FOE Press Office

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] The Mixed Oxide Plant was completed four years ago to produce a new form of reactor fuel called MOX. Around 10% of the fuel is plutonium, and there are fears that it could be used for making nuclear weapons. Despite BNFL's enthusiasm to start, the order book remains almost empty, with contracts having been secured for less than 10 % of capacity. British Energy, the UK's privatised nuclear generator, has refused to use MOX.

[2] The Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) commissioned Arthur D Little Consultants (ADL) to undertake an independent evaluation of the economic case for SMP (DETR Press Notice 23 April 2001). This work ran in parallel with an eight week public consultation exercise which closed on 23rd May 2001. Ministers said they would not be subjecting the ADL report to public scrutiny before they take their decision on SMP, but have now changed their minds.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust