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Brazil (Uranium Supplies)

Volume 951: debated on Monday 12 June 1978

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asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions have taken place. with the United States Government about the supply of enriched uranium to Brazil.

The safeguards and nonproliferation arrangements to be attached to the Urenco contract to supply low enriched uranium to Brazil have been discussed on a number of occasions with the United States Government in the course of exchanging views on international non-proliferation matters generally.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what safeguards will be required from the Brazilian Government in return for the supply of enriched uranium from Capenhurst; and how these safeguards will be monitored.

Exports of low enriched uranium from the United Kingdom supplied under the Urenco contract, and any nuclear material derived therefrom, will be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, including inspection and monitoring by the Agency, to ensure that they are used only for peaceful purposes. In addition, the Brazilian Government agreed in January that any plutonium derived from the reprocessing of low enriched uranium supplied by Urenco shall be stored under an IAEA plutonium storage regime if such a regime is available, or under an ad hoc regime based on the principles of Article XII(A)5 of the IAEA statute to be agreed by the three Centrifuge Governments and Brazil if by that time an international storage regime has not been set up under the IAEA statute. A copy of the text of this agreement was deposited in the Library of the House on 22nd March.