UK ready to pay for access to EU nuclear agency

BRITAIN IS prepared to pay for access to the European nuclear organisation Euratom after Brexit, provided the country gets “a suitable level of influence” within it, Theresa May has said.

The Prime Minister said maintaining “a deep science partnership” with the EU after 2019 was in the interest of both Britain and the trading bloc. In a speech at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, she said she was willing to discuss a deal with the EU as soon as possible over access to the agency, of which Britain has been a member since 1973.

She also signalled that current immigration rules for foreign students at British universities would remain in place post-Brexit, saying the UK “will always be open to the brightest and the best researchers to come and make their valued contribution”.

Mrs May said: “The United Kingdom would like the option to fully associate ourselves with the excellence-based European science and innovation programme, including the successor to Horizon 2020 and Euratom R&T.

“It is in the mutual interest of the UK and the EU that we should do so. Of course such as association would involve an appropriate UK financial contribution, which we would willingly make.”

Euratom, formally the European Atomic Energy Community, is responsible for regulating the nuclear industry across the continent, disposing of waste, safeguarding the transport of nuclear materials, the mobility of workers in the sector, and nuclear research and development.

■ Separately, the Department for Transport announced yesterday that it is planning to allow lorries to park on one lane of the M20 after Brexit in a bid to avoid “serious disruption to cross-Channel transport”. The idea being put forward is for a contraflow system in which lorries headed for the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel would be held on the coast-bound carriageway between junctions eight and nine.