its first phase of application has proved to be more safe for its employees than the safety that is enjoyed in any normal
manufacturing process.
The higher standards of safety required have meant that from the
earliest days of civil nuclear power there has been a skilled safety
Inspectorate. The Health and Safety Executive's Nuclear
Installations Inspectorate comprises some of the most talented and scientifically skilled people in the country, who, quite independent of Government and the industry, exercise a tight and tough safety
control of all that takes place.
Such is the desire to obtain the highest standards of safety that
before making a decision as to whether to build a PWR reactor in
Britain, it was decided that there should be the most intensive
independent inquiry that has ever taken place in this country.
Sir Frank Layfield listened to the views of all those that wished to
put a case for or against the project. He has been responsible for
the most detailed examination of all of the safety factors ever
made, and it is only after such a report that Britain will make a
decision as to whether this form of reactor should be used or not.
In Britain for 25 years the civil nuclear industry has steadily
provided an increasing volume of our electricity. It now provides 20% of our electricity requirement, and with those stations due for commissioning in the near future, a quarter of Britain's electricity
will come from nuclear power. The quarter of a century of build-up
to providing a quarter of our electricity, has been a quarter of a century with a remarkable safety record with no serious threat of
any description to either customer or employee. Such a record could create complacency but there cannot be complacency when in another part of the world, the Soviet Union, an accident takes place on the
scale of Chernobyl.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
The Chernobyl incident has focussed attention upon the crucial need for proper international standards in nuclear safety. If the world is destined to have the greatest growth of nuclear energy in the
first half of the next century, then we must create the highest
standards of international collaboration for nuclear safety.
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