Leaving Euratom is ‘opportunity for UK’

Brexit changed that.

Following last year's referendum, the UK is set to leave the body - which has the full name of the European Atomic Energy Community, responsible for nuclear safety and security in Europe since 1957.

Euratom is not part of the EU, it was though set up on the same date. Its original purpose was to provide secure access to nuclear materials and technology the civil nuclear industry.

This revolves around he free movement of capital to invest in the sector and the free movement of experts to work at nuclear facilities. It also looks after the movement of nuclear goods.

The body also has interests in technology research setting standards and regulations for t handling and use of materials and regulating the supply of isotopes.

This will mean that the UK will have to set up its own regulatory body and systems for the entire nuclear industry.

Reaction to this part of Brexit - it would be fair to say - has not been overwhelmingly positive.

Trade body the Nuclear Industry Association has said its "preferred position" is to stay a member and has urged the Government to come up with a transitional arrangement quickly. The British Medical Association has made similar calls, amid fears that leaving Euratom might result in problems with the supply of radioisotopes, which are used in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

More locally, Barrow MP John Woodcock has said leaving Euratom could be a "calamity" for Cumbria and put jobs in the county at risk. His Conservative counterpart in Copeland, Trudy Harrison, has said the effects could be "economically crushing".

A key figure in one of the UK's leading think tanks though has sounded a more positive note, and has encouraged other people to do the same.

Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute. This is an organisation which is based around the principles of Scottish economist Adam Smith, who advocated prosperity through free market economic ideas and "small" governments.

He has said that a lot of what has been said about the departure from Euratom - and Brexit more generally - has been "scaremongering" and has urged people to look for the positives in the process.

"I think people in general are scaremongering," he said.

"It iss entirely true that there are a number of bureaucratic systems and procedures in place which are part and parcel of our general intertwining with the EU. They will also need to be replaced, modified perhaps, as we untwine."

He added that this has come around because some people are "perhaps confusing the current bureaucratic setups with the reality".

There are a number of countries out there which have nuclear industries and which are not members of Euratom," Mr Worstall said.

"It is obviously possible therefore to have nuclear regulatory systems other than that EU associated one."

He has also predicted that leaving Euratom will help jobs in the UK.

"We are going to need a new regulatory system and someone, somewhere, is going to get hired to provide it," he said.

Mr Worstall also questioned the complexity of leaving Euratom.

He said: "The complexity of leaving is a reflection of the complexity of the system itself of course. I take the constant complaints of how difficult this is all going to be as a part-proof of why we should be leaving the EU system more generally.

"Why would we want to remain part of a monster of such bureaucratic complexity?"

He did though say that Euratom membership could be workable if it did not also come with the need to work with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which comes with membership. As part of Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May wants to sever all ties to the ECJ.

Mr Worstall said: "My longstanding complaint about the EU is that it is a system as a whole. Unlike treaty arrangements it is necessary to sign up to the full deal, no picking and choosing allowed - that would be that horror of a two speed Europe.

"I'm entirely fine with cooperation between, across, nations where it specifically makes sense. Euratom, sans that ECJ problem, looks like something which could be valid in that sense. But we've had to sign up to everything else as well, limits on vacuum cleaner motor sizes to use a trivial example.

"Cooperate where it's in our interests, most certainly, but not being subsumed into the maw of the system as a whole."

* Barrow MP John Woodcock has reiterated his concerns for Cumbria's nuclear industry if the UK leaves Euratom without new regulations in place.

Alongside this, he has concerns over the effect on the county's proposed £10bn nuclear new build at Moorside, near Sellafield.

He said: "Nobody is disputing that it is possible to have a regulatory programme but the question is what are the consequences and costs of the uncertainty at such a crucial time for the UK with an industry which is of particular importance to Cumbria."

The civil nuclear industry employs almost 16,000 people in Cumbria, according to NIA figures, with 14,707 of these jobs based in the Copeland parliamentary constituency, 261 in Barrow and six in South Lakeland. Mr Woodcock pointed out that NuGen, the company behind Moorside, is looking for a new investor because of financial difficulties facing owner Toshiba.

"At the moment there is a cloud of uncertainty in place over the UK nuclear industry," Mr Woodcock said.

"Investors do not like uncertainty."

Copeland MP Trudy Harrison has previously said that a new nuclear body could be set up to replace Euratom in the UK and that this could be based in her constituency.