I congratulate my colleague and noble friend on the rigour with which he has approached this area. It is the nature of probing amendments to make sure that what it says on the tin is what the Government are going to do. If we can get it right, we can avoid the kind of problems which I encountered many years ago as a constituency Member. I picked up the local newspaper to be told that the local authority rubbish tip near one of my villages was a nuclear dump. I then had a terrible job trying to find out who was responsible for the nuclear element within it. It transpired that it concerned a lecturer at Stirling University and that all we were really talking about was the lowest of low-level waste coming out of the radiology departments of the local hospitals. For about 20 minutes, it afforded one of the local hysterics an opportunity to parade his anxiety about all things nuclear. However, it also indicated that there is an awful lot of loose talk. Therefore, if at this stage we can make the issue of associated sites clear and explicit, and even if it is a somewhat tortuous process, as I think my noble friend has indicated, that will be important.
We should not lose sight of the fact that, at some stage or another, a lot of low-level waste is gathered together and taken to Drigg, where it is treated. As we say in Scotland, “Many a mickle maks a muckle”. You end up with a whole lot of little bits of radiological and nuclear waste being brought together on a site and being treated. Therefore, it is important that we differentiate between that which is a nuclear site and that which is not.
It is clear that throughout, for example, the generic design assessment process, which looked at the two new forms of reactors that we may well see in the UK, the Environment Agency walked step-by-step with the nuclear agency at the same time. As Lord Jenkins just said, it is important that we make sure that—