11 March 2014
The Scottish government is to end the Ministry of Defence’s historic protection from regulation and prosecution for radioactive pollution, the environment minister, Richard Lochhead, announced today.
In the wake of growing concern over the MoD’s failure to inform official watchdogs, the Scottish government or the local community about a mishap at the Vulcan naval reactor in Caithness in January 2012, ministers have moved to close the MoD’s ‘Crown immunity’ loophole.
Under current law, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) can only regulate plants like Vulcan under a “flawed gentlemen’s agreement” with the MoD, the Scottish government said. This means that Sepa has no legal authority within the Vulcan site, and no power to force the MoD to take action if there are concerns.
Lochhead argued that the exemption for the MoD under the 1993 Radioactive Substances Act was an anomaly. “There is no good reason that radioactive substances should be treated any differently from other risks to the environment,” he said.
“The secrecy and lack of transparency in this case is an abuse of the crown exemption. By removing crown exemption Sepa will be able to regulate all of Scotland and in this situation they would have had the power to demand that action was taken rather than the MoD being able to withhold vital information.”
Lochhead accused the MoD of “a deep-seated culture of secrecy”. It had misled local community representatives, he said, “telling them everything was fine and routine when it clearly was not.”
He added: “The MoD is in control of facilities which present great potential hazard in Scotland. The UK Government owe the people of Scotland an apology for the Vulcan incident, and must commit to far greater openness about their nuclear activities in Scotland.”
The Scottish Parliament recently passed the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act, introducing a new environmental regulation regime. “We want to get rid of anomalies like Crown exemption and treat all those subject to regulation even-handedly,” said Lochhead. “We therefore propose to use the forthcoming regulations under the Regulatory Reform Act to leave behind the Crown exemption for MoD sites.”
Crown exemption used to be widespread in areas like environmental protection and health and safety, but has been reduced over the years. In Scotland, it applies to other MoD sites as well as Vulcan, including the Faslane nuclear submarine base and the Coulport nuclear weapons store on the Clyde and the Dundrennan military firing range near Kirkcudbright where depleted uranium shells have been fired.
The government’s move was welcomed by anti-nuclear and environmental groups. “The MoD's gagging of Sepa and the Office for Nuclear Regulation shows that the current arrangement is unsatisfactory and unsafe,” said John Ainslie, coordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “The military should be forced to meet the same pollution standards as everyone else and not hide behind a blanket immunity or a veil of secrecy.”
Comments