Cover-up?

Congratulations to Paul Flynn, who has been pursuing the multi-billion pound subsidy to an American company in the event of a catastrophic accident at Sellafield during part of the massive £93 billion clean-up of the nuclear legacy there.

As the Independent on Sunday reveals the Government pushed through the handover of Sellafield to a private business at breakneck speed because it feared that the "unstable management arrangements" of the controversial Cumbrian nuclear complex risked its safety. In doing so they effectively by-passed Parliamentary scrutiny by preventing MPs challenging the deal.

The paper tells us that 'the cover-up arises from the awarding, late in November, of a contract to run the nuclear complex to Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of US, French and British companies. Although the contract is worth some £22bn, the consortium told ministers that it would walk away from the deal unless it was fully indemnified against the costs of cleaning up an accident at what is one of the world's most hazardous nuclear sites.

Normally, as the documents repeatedly acknowledge, the Government would place a special minute before Parliament if it intended to undertake a liability of more than £250,000. MPs would then have 14 days to raise an objection, which would stop the undertaking going ahead until it had been dealt with. But MPs were not told about the Sellafield indemnity until 75 days after the last moment when they could object, even though it potentially exposes the taxpayer to liabilities running into billions.

The energy minister Mike O'Brien blames a "clerical oversight" for this. But the documents clearly show that the senior civil servants and nuclear administrators had been actively discussing how to limit MPs' chance to object at least since early last year.'

This whole incident highlights a number of issues with nuclear facilities such as Sellafield. Firstly, for those who argue that alternative energy sources such as wind power have an unfair advantage because of public subsidy, it is worth noting that nuclear power has far greater amounts of public money propping it up and that the hidden subsidy for this form of generation lies in the clean-up costs and the public indemnity of risk.

Secondly, it underlines the aura of secrecy and the lack of accountability that surrounds civilian nuclear projects. Ministers and civil servants find the level of subsidy involved to be uncomfortably high and seek to avoid effective scrutiny on it. The security issues involved too make proper oversight difficult though not impossible.

With Wylfa Nuclear Plant on Anglesey due to be shut down and decommissioned in 2010 and with Trawsfynydd in the process of being decommissioned then there will inevitably be questions about the cost to the public purse involved there as well as well as the level of accountability. How does this episode impact on proposals for a Wylfa B to be built on Anglesey?