Utility Week

6 | 15TH - 21ST JUNE 2018 | UTILITY WEEK Policy & Regulation This week Post-Brexit nuclear protections are ready Lords pass Nuclear Safeguards Bill intended to replace framework provided by the Euratom treaty The government says key build- ing blocks of the UK's post-Brexit nuclear safeguarding regime have been assembled. The Nuclear Safeguards Bill – designed to create a new regulatory framework to replace that currently provided by the Euratom treaty – has been passed by the House of Lords. And the UK has signed two new agreements in Vienna with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that cover nuclear safeguarding and non-prolif- eration. They replace existing trilateral arrangements between the IAEA, Euratom and the UK. The new agree- ments ensure the IAEA retains its right to inspect all UK civil nuclear facilities, ensuring international verification of the UK's safeguarding activity continues to be robust. The UK has already signed a new Nuclear Co-oper- ation Agreement with the US, although this is yet to be ratified by Parliament or the US Congress. During the final debate on the Nuclear Safeguards Bill, the government amended the legislation under pressure from the House of Lords for an extra safety net. An amendment passed during an earlier stage of the bill's passage through the Lords would have obliged the government to request a suspension of the UK's withdrawal from Euratom if alternative safeguarding arrangements were not in place on 1 March. Under the government's replacement amendment, the secretary of state would have to ask the EU for "cor- responding" Euratom arrangements to continue if an agreement had not been signed. DB ELECTRICITY Island windfarms can bid for CfD aid The government has announced that onshore windfarms on the Scottish islands will be able to compete for contracts for differ- ence (CfD) subsidies. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has published the results of last year's consultation into whether remote islands wind should count as a separate technology category in future auctions. Onshore wind projects will qualify for the Pot 2 auction for "less established" technologies if they are on islands 10km or more off the UK mainland. Projects on the Scottish islands of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles face extra costs of up to £30 per MWh to connect to the transmission network. The European Commission has said it will not block moves to allow windfarm projects on the Scottish islands to enter the next CfD auction. WATER Water UK hits back at Corbyn's criticism Water companies have hit back at Jeremy Corbyn's attack on the industry's privatisation, which he described as a "failed and unpopular experiment". In a speech at the GMB Congress in Brighton, the Labour leader said he had signed up to the GMB's "Take Back the Tap" campaign to bring England's water industry back into public ownership. Corbyn said privati- sation had "been bad for workers in the industry and bad for bill payers", and said public owner- ship of water companies is the norm across the western world. Michael Roberts, chief executive of Water UK, said the industry had been inadequately funded when it was in public ownership. ELECTRICITY Jones tries to save Swansea tidal plan Wales' first minister has launched a last-ditch bid to res- cue plans for a pioneering wave power plant in Swansea Bay. Amid media reports that the Westminster government is gear- ing up to announce it will not support Tidal Lagoon Power's £1.2 billion project, Carwyn Jones has proposed a "way forward". The first minister has out- lined a package, based on a joint offer of support from the Welsh and UK governments, in a letter to business secretary Greg Clark. The Welsh government would inject an equity stake and/or loan of £200 million, and the UK government would commit to a contract for difference for the project on the same terms as Hinckley Point C – a strike price of £92.50/MWH over 35 years. UK has signed new agreements with the IAEA Political Agenda David Blackman "Corbyn lambasted water bosses over dividends" "All monopolies which are sus- tained in any way by the State ought to be in the hands of the representatives of the people, by whom they should be adminis- tered, and to whom their profits should go." The author of this ringing endorsement of public owner- ship was no red in tooth and claw Bolshevik but "Jo" Chamberlain, the Liberal Party-supporting visionary behind the "gas and water socialism" under which Birmingham council took over new detail about Labour's plans beyond a vague defence of the principle that employees should have a stake in the companies that they work in – but that doesn't mean Labour wants mutual ownership of the water industry, says a spokesman. Corbyn is said to have little interest in the nitty gritty of policy development. However, if it wants to convince the British public, Labour will have to start showing that its plans, ahem, hold water. these essential utilities in the late 19th century. Chamberlain ended his career as a cabinet minister in a Conservative government. A reminder of this cross-party support for public ownership might help Labour persuade the British public that its own plans to bring energy and water utili- ties back into public ownership are not a crazed Marxist plot. Labour has pledged to restore public ownership of energy distribution and water, a pledge that featured strongly in Jeremy Corbyn's speech at the confer- ence of the GMB union in which he lambasted water bosses over dividends paid to shareholders. The speech contained no

• Cover