On behalf of 15,000 members working for nuclear companies and organisations in the UK, the union has warned that the decision undermines the credibility of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and will vastly increase the cost to the taxpayer of cleaning up the UK’s nuclear legacy.
Talks between the British Nuclear Group and Prospect indicate that the Treasury plans to cut the extra decommissioning grant aid to the NDA by £160m. This will be further exacerbated by a drop in commercial income for the NDA from the Thorp plant at Sellafield, the Oldbury power station and other commercial operations.
Prospect understands the BNG reactor sites business will see a shortfall of £106m; UK Atomic Energy Authority of £57m; and the Sellafield site licence company of approximately £50m. The union warns that this will put decommissioning on hold at all sites with a consequent impact on jobs, which it expects to affect contract and agency staff first.
Prospect National Secretary Mike Graham said: "A key tenet of the NDA’s strategy since its inception was that it would fast track decommissioning and clean-up of the civil nuclear legacy as this was deemed to provide the best approach in terms of safety, cost efficiency and sustainability.
"That policy has been at the heart of all negotiations with key stakeholders such as energy companies, local authorities and trade unions but now the Treasury is set to pull the rug from under the NDA’s feet. Slicing next year’s budget will significantly increase the length of the process and hence the cost to the taxpayer. This is short-termism gone mad.
"What the Treasury fails to grasp is that you can’t stop and start nuclear decommissioning. It is a continuous process with unique challenges in terms of construction and radiation safety. It requires skilled operators who have developed their expertise over a long period of time.
"Lose these skills now and you will be unable to recall them for future decommissioning work." Even before the job losses threatened by today’s decision Cogent, the sector skills council for the industry, estimated the UK will need an additional 8,500 workers with skills in nuclear decommissioning and waste management by 2015.
Graham called on the Treasury to take a closer look into the economics of the consequences of its decision and think again.