Nuclear bosses have been quizzed by MPs.
The Public Accounts Committee examined the decommissioning of Sellafield at a hearing yesterday morning.
In the session, which lasted over two hours, Euan Hutton, chief executive at Sellafield Ltd and David Peattie, group chief executive office at Nuclear Decommissioning Authority were among those giving evidence.
It also saw Lee McDonough, director general, net zero, nuclear and international at Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Clive Maxwell, second permanent secretary at Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and Kate Bowyer, chief financial officer at Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, appear in front of the committee.
It added while Sellafield has demonstrated that it can remove its most hazardous waste, progress is not quick enough.
MPs covered several topics at the hearing yesterday relating to the £130 billion century-long clean up of the Sellafield and work at the site.
Topics included:
- How realistic targets and goals set for decommissioning are
- Whistleblowing and surrounding policies
- Balancing safety with value for money
- Public safety – in particular covering the Magnox Reprocessing Plant
The select committee heard that a leak from Magnox started in the 2019 and every three years, it leaked enough material to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
But Mr Hutton said the leak, caused by a crack in the underground section of the silo, was not detrimental to the public.
He said it was monitored closely and that showed the leak was staying beneath the surface.
Mr Peattie said it was Britain’s most hazardous building and the best way to stop the leak was to empty the silo as quickly as possible. It is hoped it will be emptied by 2059.
Questions were put to Mr Hutton regarding Alison McDermott – a former equality consultant at Sellafield Ltd and whistleblower who was let go from the site after submitting a report on bullying in 2018.
It was claimed that Sellafield Ltd is believed to have spent around £750,000 on legal fees after Ms McDermott took Sellafield to tribunal regarding her dismissal.
Mr Hutton was asked if he believed this was a good use of public money, to which he said: “As a public body we are responsible for spending public money as well as we can.
“I believe that at the moment there is still time to appeal against the most recent ruling regarding cost so I don’t necessarily wish to get into the detail of this specific case as an individual.
“When you are a public body and you’re taken to those things you have to do what you can to protect the integrity of the process and therefore the spending of that money.”
Mr Hutton added that at the time, Sellafield ran a staff survey that indicated areas it wanted to improve on and that said that since then, it has made strides forward addressing the issues that came up at the time.
He added that a recent staff survey from a fortnight ago found significant improvement and an increase of over 5 per centage points in engagement scores and diversity inclusion and wellbeing scores.
The Sellafield CEO was then asked to apologise to Ms McDermott, who was attending the session in the public gallery.
Mr Hutton did not issue a direct apology. He said: “I think as I said at the time we undertook that staff survey and leant an awful lot and from then we can list the number of things that demonstrate we absolutely take these things very seriously.
“As a result we have had an improvement in terms of an anonymous managed survey that demonstrates we are getting better at a number of things. We are not complement and we have a lot to do.”
Concerns around Sellafield’s ability to meet its long and short term targets were also raised.
Milestones for substantially emptying three of the legacy ponds and silos have been pushed back by between six and 13 years.
