I am most obliged to the noble Lord for his second sight, because I was about to address that very point.
In the context of the referendum, people voted to leave the European Union institutions. They voted to leave the European Parliament. They voted to leave the European Commission. They voted to leave the Council of Ministers, and they voted to leave the European Court of Justice. They spoke in terms of
reshoring their sovereignty and the supremacy of UK law. You cannot leave those institutions if you remain within Euratom.
It is the Government’s view that, once we have left the European Union, we will seek to engage with the members of Euratom, just as do many other nuclear-enabled countries around the world, by way of nuclear co-operation agreements. However, once we have left the EU, substantive negotiated changes to the Euratom treaty would be needed if we were to continue participating in Euratom, whether on a permanent or temporary basis. Not only is it difficult to see how that can be done given the commonality of the institutions, but it is extremely doubtful that the remaining 27 member states would be willing to take on such negotiations, particularly for a temporary change. Therefore, when we formally notify of our intention to leave the EU, we will also commence the process for leaving Euratom.
Let me be clear: the United Kingdom supports Euratom and wants to maintain continuity of co-operation and standards. As many of your Lordships have quite rightly stated, the nuclear industry is of key strategic importance to the United Kingdom. Therefore, we want to maintain our mutually successful civil nuclear co-operation with Euratom and, indeed, with all of our other international partners, which we do by means of nuclear co-operation treaties.
We maintain that the UK remains a world leader in nuclear research and development, and there is certainly no intention to reduce our ambition in that area. We fully recognise the importance of international collaboration in nuclear research and development, and we will ensure this continues by seeking alternative arrangement for our collaboration in international fusion research and development projects.
Reference has already been made to the JET project, which is based in Oxfordshire. At present, the financial commitment to JET runs to 2018 and there are proposals that that should be extended to 2020. We are committed to seeing that extension.
There is also the ITER project, which is to be based in France and is not limited to Euratom members; it is hoped that that will be operational by 2025. Again, we can foresee a commitment to further fusion research in that context.