MPs will voice serious concern this week that the nuclear safety watchdog
may have become too close to British Nuclear Fuels to regulate it
effectively.
The worry follows the crisis over the falsification of data at BNFL, which
has already led to John Taylor's replacement as chief executive by Norman
Askew.
Members of the Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee want to know
why
the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate did not pick up the problem over
the
data on fuel assemblies at BNFL's Sellafield site in Cumbria for three
years .
Last month the inspectorate published three damning reports on BNFL,
cataloguing management and resourcing problems.
Now the committee has summoned Laurence Williams, head of the NII, to a
hearing on Tuesday. This was scheduled to consider the NII's advice on
government plans to sell off 49 per cent of BNFL. However, committee
chairman Martin O'Neill will use it to grill Williams over the NII's
failure to identify the Sellafield problem faster, and about its
relationship with BNFL.
O'Neill told The Observer : 'One of the things the committee will look at
is the nature of the relationship with BNFL. It seems that some of the
quality management process problems had gone unnoticed for several years.
It begs the question of the role of the inspectorate.'
He did not believe that there was a conspiracy to cover up the issue, but
he feared that the relationship between the NII and BNFL may have become
too close.
He compares this with difficulties at the Atomic Energy Authority's
nuclear
plant at Dounreay in Scotland, where problems remained uncovered for a
long
time.
