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The climate crisis and nuclear weapons

It seems we haven’t the money to save the planet, but we can stump up any amount to fund nuclear death

NORTH EAST BYLINES, by Caroline Westgate, 15-04-2024

A massive and accelerating crisis faces all of us on Planet Earth: the climate is warming, and we will rapidly reach a point where the damage to our ecosystem will be irreversible. Dismayed by the political inertia which fails to address this emergency, increasing numbers of people are resorting to protest through nonviolent direct action.

International conferences regularly agree on aims but fail to implement action with the urgency and on the scale needed to challenge the hegemony of Big Oil. We are told that the money simply isn’t there.

But here in the UK there is one hugely costly project which, if it were cancelled, would release an income-stream which could be directed to the electorate’s real priorities: the climate crisis, the NHS, education and transport. I’m talking about Trident.

Nuclear weapons

I was five years old when America’s atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those events ended WW2 but triggered the Cold War. When the Soviet Union, the UK, France and China acquired their own nuclear arsenals, the Cold War settled into a 35-year stalemate of Mutually Assured Destruction (appropriately dubbed MAD), in which it was assumed that a nuclear exchange would be prevented by a ‘balance of terror’.

But in the 1980s, NATO strategists dropped the MAD policy, because advances in military technology gave them the confidence that they could fight and win a nuclear war: their new nuclear-armed Cruise missiles could launch pre-emptive strikes, capable of destroying the Soviets’ nuclear weapons in their silos.

Ordinary people rapidly realised that this development posed an existential threat to millions of civilians on both sides of the Iron Curtain: we had all been conscripted as front-line troops, expendable pawns in NATO’s nuclear game. A re-energised peace movement vociferously opposed Cruise missiles when they arrived on British soil: they were totally under American control, but they made the UK a target.

Embrace the Base at Greenham Common

Greenham Common in Berkshire was one of the Cruise sites. In the summer of 1981, a small group of women from South Wales established a peace camp there. During the first winter of their protest they struggled to get any support or publicity. In conditions of great hardship, they kept the camp going. Their protest grew amid evictions, arrests, imprisonments, and physical attacks. One woman was killed. All of this was accompanied by often viciously mendacious press coverage.

In December 1982, I was one of 30,000 women who responded to an unsigned chain letter, inviting us to ‘Embrace the Base’. We joined hands and encircled Greenham’s 9-mile perimeter fence. We decorated it with objects of significance to us, transforming it into a nine mile work of art.  

‘Embrace the Base’ was a high-profile event, but small-scale protests were frequently staged with daring, creativity and humour, either by the women who lived at the camp or by autonomous groups of women who travelled to Berkshire to carry out some anarchic plot of their own devising.

In September 1985, with a group of women from the North East, I made the 300-odd mile journey to Greenham again.

My group had hatched a plan to enter the base to access a small outbuilding on which they were going to paint anti-nuclear slogans, and I was there to support them. By that stage it was ludicrously easy to get through the fence because hundreds of women with bolt cutters had reduced it to shreds. The army kept patching it up, but their efforts were futile. The women from my group walked on to the base, slapped a lot of blue gloss paint on the wall of the outbuilding, then stood quietly, dripping brushes in hand, waiting to be arrested. A group of policemen duly arrived and handcuffed them. To my surprise, I was also arrested, even though I was outside the fence and hadn’t actually done anything wrong. We were all charged with criminal damage and summonsed to appear at Newbury Magistrates’ Court a few weeks later.

From the dock, I made a stirring speech to justify protesting at the base. It cut no ice whatsoever. I was found guilty of criminal damage and ordered to pay a fine and costs, which amounted to £67.75p. I refused to pay. The magistrates, who had seen it all before, wearily referred my case to my local court in Hexham. I knew that the length of time to be spent inside would be calculated pro rata from the amount of the fine I’d refused to pay. It worked out at less than a week in prison, which I felt confident I could cope with.

However, time wore on and nobody arrived to take me away. It was getting perilously near Christmas, when I really didn’t want to be away from my family. I enquired of the clerk to Hexham’s Magistrates when the law would come for me. He said:

“They don’t put people like you in prison. It’s much too expensive. We will contact your employer and put an Attachment of Earnings order on your salary.” I realised that my gesture of defiance would pointless if the only person who knew about it would be the wages clerk at County Hall. Since I was going to have to pay anyway, I decided to turn it into a stunt by making the payment on a novelty cheque……………………………………………………………………………………..

The carbon footprint of the UK military

All this is good for a laugh, but what it says about our priorities is far from funny. It is high time we looked at this issue from the perspective of the climate catastrophe, factoring-in what the military contributes to the UK’s carbon footprint. Dr Stuart Parkinson, of Scientists for Global Responsibility, calculates that the annual carbon footprint of the UK military is roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions of six million average cars.  Trident must account for a sizeable proportion of that. Of course, the government omits all mention of those figures when it claims we are progressing nicely towards net zero.

The cost of Trident

We also need to challenge why we spend such colossal amounts of money on Trident, when there are so many urgent rival claims on the public purse. The arguments against the possession of nuclear weapons are as valid now as they were when I wrote my novelty cheque nearly forty years ago.

  • the moral objection to threatening the deaths of countless numbers of people.
  • nuclear weapons make their possessors a target.
  • early-warning systems make it more likely that nuclear war will be triggered by accident.
  • nuclear war will be followed by nuclear winter, causing ecocide and wrecking forever any chance of addressing climate change.

But let’s focus on the cost of Trident, which falls on the UK at a time when serious investment in public services is urgently needed on a huge scale. The figures bandied about are quoted not in millions but in billions. The difference between those two quantities is so vast it is hard to grasp, so try this analogy: a million seconds would last for about eleven days, but a billion seconds would last for 31 and a half years.

The Nuclear Information Service calculates the cost of Trident as £172 billion (including its new warheads and its running costs over its projected lifetime). That is a stupendous amount of money to lavish on maintaining the fiction that the UK is a world-class power. Neither the Tories nor Labour dares to question that expenditure. By contrast, Labour’s new idea for a Green Investment Fund (a mere £28 billion) was recently cancelled as unaffordable.

Apparently, we haven’t the money to save the planet, but we can stump up any amount to fund nuclear death.

Why are our priorities so badly skewed?  https://northeastbylines.co.uk/the-climate-crisis-and-nuclear-weapons/

April 19, 2024 Posted by | climate change, Religion and ethics, UK, Women | Leave a comment

No Russian heavy weapons at Zaporozhye plant – IAEA boss

 https://www.rt.com/russia/596018-no-heavy-russian-arms-zaporozhye/—16 Apr 24

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was attacked by drones last week

Russia has not stationed heavy weapons at Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters on Monday.

Moscow and Kiev have accused each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which sits close to the front line. Ukraine and its Western backers have also accused Moscow of using the facility as cover for its troops.

“There is no heavy weaponry there,” Grossi told reporters, after a UN Security Council meeting dedicated to the renewed strikes on the plant. 

Although there are Russian “armored vehicles and some security presence at the plant,” IAEA monitors did not see any prohibited weapons, such as multiple rocket launchers, tanks, and artillery, Grossi explained. 

He added that the IAEA does not have the mandate to determine which side has been attacking the facility, and argued that “indisputable evidence” is needed to establish who is responsible.

Addressing the Security Council, Grossi confirmed that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was struck on April 7, which was the first direct attack on the site since November 2022. Inspectors have determined that the apex of the containment dome of the Unit 6 reactor building was hit, he added. “Whilst the damage to the structure is superficial, the attack sets a very dangerous precedent of the successful targeting of the reactor containment,” Grossi stressed, warning that “these reckless attacks must cease immediately.”

Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council that Ukrainian forces have been “systematically” targeting the plant and surrounding areas. The Russian army has been “spotting and intercepting up to 100 drones per week,” Nebenzia added, insisting that Moscow has never placed heavy weapons at the facility or used the plant to stage attacks on Ukraine.

Officials in Kiev have denied striking the nuclear plant. “The position of Ukraine is clear and unequivocal: we are not conducting any military activities or provocations against nuclear sites,” Andrey Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, told national TV this month. Andrey Kovalenko, the head of the state-run Center for Countering Disinformation, has accused Moscow of spreading false information and “manipulating the IAEA.”

The agency said in its report this week that all of the facility’s six reactors are currently in cold shutdown. According to the plant’s management, only one reactor had been working since 2022 in order to keep the site operational. IAEA inspectors were deployed to monitor the facility in September 2022. 

April 19, 2024 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Survey by East Lindsay District Councillor and Guardians of the East Coast (GOTEC) say ‘85% don’t want nuclear dump’

​A new survey by a Theddlethorpe campaign group has shown that after years of the campaign, public opinion remains the same – it’s still a ‘no’ to a nuclear waste dump.

Lincolnshire World, By The Newsroom, 16th Apr 2024,

Travis Hesketh, East Lindsey District Councillor for the Withern and Theddlethorpe Ward, joined forces with the Guardians of the East Coast to host public consultation events during March to gather public opinion on Nuclear Waste Services plans to store nuclear waste at Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal.

As well as asking residents of Theddlethorpe and Sutton on Sea in person and online, village hall events were also held in Carlton, Reston, Mablethorpe, Maltby le Marsh, and Withern.

The results showed that of the 1,008 registered votes, 85 percent of respondents did not want the GDF – the same result found in 2022’s survey – while 7.7 percent were undecided, and the remaining 7.7 percent were for a GDF.

In a statement within the results, Ken Smith, chairman of the GOTEC, said: “After a three year project, the view of the community remains the same – this community does not want a GDF. It is not a willing community.

“There is no change of opinion taking place despite NWS lobbying. It is reasonable therefore to conclude that there is no prospect of gaining community support for the GDF.”………………………………………………….. https://www.lincolnshireworld.com/news/environment/survey-by-eldc-councillor-and-gotec-say-85-dont-want-nuclear-dump-4592761

April 19, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Labour and nuclear weapons: a turbulent ideological history

BY CHAS NEWKEY-BURDEN, THE WEEK UK, 15 Apr 24

From the 1940s to Keir Starmer, the party leadership has zigzagged in and out of love with the bomb

“We’ve got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs,” Labour’s then foreign secretary Ernest Bevin reportedly said in the 1940s, and “we’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it”.

That “thing” was the atomic bomb, but since being acquired by the UK, nuclear weapons have been a “divisive issue” within Labour, said the BBC. 

Anti-nuke ‘fixture’

Michael Foot, who became Labour leader in 1980, was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and “a fixture at anti-nuclear demonstrations”, said socialist magazine Tribune. 

When Neil Kinnock took over as leader in 1983, the party’s policy, which he supported, was unilateral nuclear disarmament and the removal of all US nuclear weapons and bases from British soil. But this policy was only supported by a minority of the British public, and Labour lost the 1987 general election.

By 1989, Kinnock had convinced the party to drop these policies, but “many” on the Labour left remain “vehemently opposed” to that decision, said the BBC.

Previously ‘unthinkable’

As a young MP, Tony Blair was a member of CND, but he was never strongly in favour of unilateral disarmament, and as party leader, he was on board with the party’s pro-nuclear policy……………………………………………

A ‘nuclear-free world’

Like Foot and Blair, Jeremy Corbyn was also a CND member, rising up to be vice-president of the campaign group before he became party leader in 2015. Corbyn told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme that if he became prime minister, he would instruct the UK’s defence chiefs never to use the Trident nuclear weapons system.

“I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons,” he said. “I am opposed to the holding of nuclear weapons. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I believe it is possible.”……………………

‘Unshakeable’

Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, has moved the party back to a staunchly pro-nuclear policy. In an article in the Daily Mail last week, he said that his commitment to the UK’s nuclear weapons was “unshakeable” and “absolute”……………………

Asked by ITV News if he would be willing to push the nuclear button as PM if Britain were under attack, Starmer said that “deterrence only works if there is a preparedness to use it”. https://theweek.com/defence/labour-nuclear-weapons-history

April 19, 2024 Posted by | history, UK | Leave a comment

Two days of strikes planned at Dounreay nuclear power complex

 Workers at the Dounreay nuclear power complex have voted to go on strike
next month. The Prospect union said its members would walk out on 1 and 2
May followed by a work to rule. Workers from Unite and the GMB had
previously voted in favour of industrial action after rejecting a 4.5%
offer backdated to April 2023. Dounreay’s operator, Nuclear Restoration
Services (NRS), has said previously it was disappointed by the result of
the votes. The site employs about 1,200 people.

 BBC 15th April 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51nwr5v657o

April 19, 2024 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Theberton faces nightmare Sizewell C roadworks disruption

 Fed-up villagers living along a B-road near Leiston have been left upset,
sleep-deprived and out of pocket after weeks of roadworks for Sizewell C. A
night-time operation to resurface the B1122 through Theberton and towards
Middleton between March 18 and April 10 left residents at the end of their
tether. Middleton Parish Councillor Charles Macdowell – who lives along the
road – said his house was shaking as they planed the surface of the road
and the noise kept him and his wife awake at night.

 East Anglian Daily Times 15th April 2024

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24252702.theberton-faces-nightmare-sizewell-c-roadworks-disruption

April 19, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

MPs flag UK’s HM Revenue & Custom’s £1.4bn active contracts with Fujitsu

accounting WEB, by Tom Herbert, 10 Feb 24

A committee of MPs has published new data showing that HMRC holds eight active contracts with Fujitsu with a combined value of £1.4bn, all of which were awarded after a High Court verdict that ruled the developer’s software was responsible for misreported losses during the Post Office scandal.

Data from the Treasury Committee shows public organisations have held more than £3.4bn worth of contracts with Fujitsu since 2019 – the year a High Court ruling determined that there were defects in the developer’s Horizon software. Just over £2bn worth of contracts were agreed before the judge’s ruling and continued into the period following 2019, while around £1.4 bn was awarded after 2019.

Fujitsu’s Horizon software is at the heart of one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, where 900 Post Office subpostmasters were prosecuted based on faulty evidence provided by the system, and backed up by court testimonies from Fujitsu experts. 

Despite the court ruling, and evidence that the company and its staff were complicit in covering up the scandal, Fujitsu continued to be listed as a preferred government supplier until 2022 when it was removed (but continued to win contracts through the regular procurement process).  Following the public outcry generated by the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Fujitsu wrote to the government in January 2024 to confirm it would no longer tender for business.

HMRC’s active contracts

At the time of writing, HMRC holds eight active contracts with Fujitsu with a combined value of £1.39bn – the largest in terms of both value and number. Financial services watchdog the FCA maintains six contracts worth more than £9m. ………………………………………………….

Government tech programmes ‘hobbled’

While the figures may generate plenty of noise from politicians and frustration from taxpayers, they are unlikely to result in meaningful change in the near future. 

There are few ‘strategic technology suppliers’ able to take on the complexity and scale of many of the projects undertaken by government departments – as underlined by the award of a £485m contract to Fujitsu for the Northern Irish Education Authority in December 2023, which received just one tender from the Japanese software house.

Critics have also pointed to a lack of technical and commercial skills in government to deal with the challenges – leaving them poorly positioned when it comes to digital transformation or re-procurement. 

In a report last year, Public Accounts Committee Chair Meg Hillier said the government’s technology programmes are “hobbled by staff shortages, and a lack of support, accountability and focus from the top.

“The government talks of its ambitions for digital transformation and efficiency, while actively cutting the very roles which could help achieve them,” she added.

April 19, 2024 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

Attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear plant put world at risk, IAEA warns

By Euronews with AP, 16/04/2024 
 https://www.euronews.com/2024/04/16/attacks-on-ukraines-nuclear-plant-put-world-at-risk-iaea-warns

“We’re getting dangerously close to a nuclear accident,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said following multiple attacks against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said attacks against Europe’s largest nuclear power plant have put the world “dangerously close to a nuclear accident”.

Without attributing blame, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency has been able to confirm three attacks against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant since 7 April.

“These reckless attacks must cease immediately,” he told the Security Council on Monday. “Though, fortunately, they have not led to a radiological incident this time, they significantly increase the risk … where nuclear safety is already compromised.”

The remote-controlled nature of the drones that have attacked the plant means that it is not possible to determine who launched them, Grossi told reporters after the meeting.

“In order to say something like that, we must have proof,” he said. “These attacks have been performed with a multitude of drones”.

Zaporizhzhia sits in Russian-controlled territory in southeastern Ukraine and has six nuclear reactors.

Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been at the forefront since Russian troops occupied the plant shortly after invading in February 2022. Continued fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces – as well as the tense supply situation at the plant – have raised the risk of a disaster.

Ukraine and its allies on Monday blamed Russia for dangers at the site. Russia, for its part, said Ukraine was to blame for the attacks.

“The IAEA’s report does not pinpoint which side is behind the attacks,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “We know full well who it is.”

April 18, 2024 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

New Hinkley nuclear power plant expected to kill 46 tonnes of fish a year.

EDF building £50m nature reserve near Hinkley Point to compensate for loss of life

Jonathan Leake, 16 April 2024

A nature reserve is to be flooded by the developer of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant at a cost of £50m to compensate for the death of fish in its cooling pipes…

 An 840 acre swathe of land along the Parrett
estuary in Somerset will be transformed into salt marsh as a habitat for
marine life to replace fish sucked in by the new power station’s cooling
ducts. The area affected – part of the Somerset levels, where Saxon king
Alfred the Great is said to have hidden from the Vikings – includes
farmers’ fields used for grazing, as well as a nature reserve.

EDF, the French company building Hinkley Point, will create a new nature reserve
nearby to replace the land being lost. The overall changes are expected to
cost it £50m. The massive water intakes used to suck water from the
Bristol Channel to cool Hinkley Point C’s reactors are expected to kill
up to 46 tonnes of fish a year when the plant opens in 2031.

EDF also explored installing an acoustic fish deterrent, effectively a loud noise to
ward away animals, but concluded this would cause more harm than it
prevented. Chris Fayers, the company’s head of environment at Hinkley,
said: “An acoustic fish deterrent would use 280 speakers to make noise
louder than a jumbo jet 24-hours a day for 60 years with unknown impacts on
other species like porpoises, seals, whales. “It offers a very
small potential benefit to protected fish species and would also risk the
safety of divers in the fast-flowing tides of the Bristol Channel. New
natural habitat is a better solution.”

EDF said it was working with
Natural England, the Environment Agency, and other conservation
bodies to develop the new natural habitats. It plans to take out
compulsory purchase orders to acquire the land and then destroy its
protective dykes so that saltwater can flood in, according to planning
documents.

Dozens of farmers around Pawlett Hams, north of Bridgwater in
Somerset, have been told their grazing land is likely to become salt marsh.
One said: “It’s an existential threat to farmers’ livelihoods.” EDF
has told local people: “We are proposing to create 340 hectares of salt
marsh habitat. Will Barnard, chair of the Pawlett Parish Council, who also
works as an environmental land manager on some of the affected land, said
no-one was happy with the scheme.

 Telegraph 16th April 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/16/hinkley-point-developer-flood-nature-reserve-fish-deaths

April 18, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Safety probe at Cheshire-based nuclear cargo firm

By Sophie Zeldin-O’Neill, Senior Journalist, BBC News, 17 Apr 24

A company that transports uranium overseas has been told it must improve the safety of its operations.

Urenco UK Ltd (UUK), based in Capenhurst, Cheshire, had not made proper safety checks or made sure its shipments were correctly approved, industry watchdog the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) said.

The problems were identified during inspections by the ONR.

UUK has until 31 May to comply with the improvement notice……………….

Nick Blackburn, principal inspector from ONR’s Transport Competent Authority, said all
companies involved in transporting radioactive materials needed to make
sure they were working within the law.

 BBC 16th April 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-68795389

April 18, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Fujitsup-ing UK ‘s Post Office IT system, – and now its Nuclear Lab?

The UK government’s National Nuclear Laboratory has given Fujitsu a £155k contract for ‘software support’ IT – for nuclear science and experimental programmes in nuclear power and weapons.

Fujitsu? The Japanese software company that supplied, and apparently is still supplying, the British Post office with software – its bodgy Horizon IT programme being at the root of  one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK history.. Yes, that one!

It doesn’t fill you with confidence about the safety of the UK’s nuclear lab activities, does it?

The Post Office’s contract with Fujitsu was, (is) extremely complex, with the Post Office lacking the expertise to understand how the IT system works. Does the nuclear lab have the same problem?

These types of contracts deliberately lock the buyer in, with the supplier having control of all upgrades, fixing of any technical problems. The Post Office contract also limited the amount of information they could get from the system.

This created a dependance by the Post Office on the company Fujitsu. Is the British military and nuclear system also locked into dependance on Fujitsu? A source told the i newspaper that the Japanese firm has been managing a secretive computer system facilitating the “strategic command and control of UK Armed Forces” for decades.

The contract for the National Nuclear Laboratory is the first government contract with Fujitsu in 2024, – to the anger and frustration of many, as the inquiry into the Post Office software scandal is still underway, with more litigation likely to come.

April 17, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Abrdn and two more City giants shun Sizewell C nuclear project

Three of the City’s largest investment firms have confirmed they are not buying into the delay-stricken Sizewell C nuclear project.

City AM, RHODRI MORGAN, 15 Apr 24,

Emails seen by City A.M. show that representatives from Abrdn, Aviva and Phoenix Group each told anti-Sizewell C campaign group, Stop Sizewell C, that they were not looking to bankroll the project, which is expected to reach around £20bn in costs.

Phoenix Group, which has around £280bn in assets under management, has previously expressed interest in nuclear projects.

The decisions mark a further blow against the UK government’s struggling nuclear programme.

In an effort to shore up cash flows to rescue the delay-ridden Sizewell and Hinkley Point C projects, the government revealed a framework, many years in the making: The Regulated Asset Base (RAB), which would allow institutional lenders to buy into nuclear development.

But Abrdn, Aviva and Phoenix Group’s failure to get onboard adds to a growing list of major financial houses, including pension funds of BT, Natwest and Nest, to snub the project.

“The strategy has not succeeded,” said Stop Sizewell C’s executive director Alison Downes.

“It is hardly a surprise considering the many uncertainties, including what the project will actually cost and we congratulate those pension funds that have steered clear of Sizewell C’s capital raise, and urge the handful that have not decided to hotfoot it out immediately.”

The government is currently the majority shareholder and is currently investing a total of £2.5bn in financial support for the project…………………………

Sizewell is not the only major reactor project hampered by sky-rocketing costs and time delays.

Hinkley Point C, initially due to be operational in 2017 with a £18bn bill is now expected to be completed by 2031 and cost up to £35bn.

Accounting for inflation, this could potentially rise to £46bn and France’s state energy company EDF is on the hook for an £11bn impairment charge on the project.  https://www.cityam.com/abrdn-and-two-more-city-giants-shun-sizewell-c-nuclear-project/

April 17, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

You will not BELIEVE what the Tories just gave Fujitsu ANOTHER government contract for

The ‘fallout’ could be disastrous.

 by Steve Topple, 11 April 2024,  https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2024/04/11/fujitsu-nuclear-uk-contract/

Disgraced Fujitsu – the company behind the Horizon software that helped the Post Office wrongly convict hundreds of subpostmasters – has just been given ANOTHER government contract by the Tories. However, that’s not the worst part – because unbelievably, the deal is for software to support UK nuclear experiments.

Yes. The fallout could be disastrous.

As LBC reported:

The National Nuclear Laboratory, which is owned and operated by the government, has awarded the firm a £155k contract for ‘software support’ until 2025…

The contract, published by procurement data provider Tussell, is for “software support” and is due to run until 31 March 2025.

Hairbrained Tories: we’ve got a great idea… why not give Fujitsu a nuclear contract?

The National Nuclear Laboratory does all sorts of stuff with nuclear energy. As it says on its website, this includes:

four strategic areas: Clean Energy, Environmental Restoration, Health and Nuclear Medicine and Security and Non-Proliferation.

That is, the laboratory dabbles in nuclear science and experiments – including nuclear power and weapons; note its ironic oxymoron that it deals with ‘security’ and ‘non-proliferation’. So, you’d think that the government would want to make sure that the National Nuclear Laboratory was a safe and secure environment.

Clearly fucking not, though – as they’ve now given Fujitsu a contract.

People on X were rightly outraged: (several quotes here)

Christopher Head was the youngest victim of the Horizon Post Office scandal. He told LBC:

When there is a pledge not to bid for contracts you kind of expect them to adhere to that. But the problem is these companies have shareholders, and these shareholders demand profitability. It is frustrating.

Fujitsu made this pledge that they wouldn’t voluntarily bid for contracts within the government while the inquiry is going on – but we all know the size of these companies makes it difficult.

Post Office scandal: you must have been in a nuclear bunker if you missed it

Unless you’ve been in a nuclear bunker for the past 12 months, then you can’t have missed the Post Office scandal.

As the Canary previously reported, Mr Bates vs the Post Office has brought the ongoing scandal over the Horizon IT system, and Post Office and politicians conduct at the time, back into the public eye.

More than 700 people running small local post offices received criminal convictions between 1999 and 2005 after faulty accounting software made it appear that money had gone missing from their branches.

The scandal has been described at an ongoing public inquiry as “the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history”.

Fujitsu: giving the UK its very own Hulk moment?

Yet here we are, with the Tories STILL giving Fujitsu another contract. Worse still, they’ve given it to them on the basis of providing tech support for nuclear technology. So, unless the government fancies itself as creating a league of superhumans, then it needs to revoke the contract.

Fujitsu cannot be trusted to run a piss up in a brewery – let alone software support for a nuclear experiments lab. It could barely handle the tech for provincial Post Offices. The Canary can see an Incredible Hulk moment coming on if this goes ahead – and we hope everyone has their nuclear bunkers ready.

Sign the petition against the contract here.

April 17, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Post Office Horizon scandal: four reasons why the government’s model for outsourcing is broken

Alice Moore, Assistant Professor in Public Management and Public Policy, University of Birmingham, January 16, 2024 , https://theconversation.com/post-office-horizon-scandal-four-reasons-why-the-governments-model-for-outsourcing-is-broken-220919

For over a decade, the Post Office and its supplier, Fujitsu, insisted that the Horizon system used in its branches was completely “robust”. When discrepancies appeared in hundreds of branch accounts across the country, the Post Office refused to believe the system was at fault and didn’t challenge the information it got from Fujitsu. Instead, it blamed the shortfalls on sub-postmasters, made them pay the losses, and prosecuted over 700 of them.

The multimillion-pound contract between the Post Office and Fujitsu is at the heart of the scandal. The way the contract worked meant that Fujitsu was incentivised to fix bugs quickly rather than well. The Post Office didn’t have the expertise it needed to understand what was going wrong. The Post Office’s dependence on Fujitsu also meant that it protected its relationship with them at the expense of sub-postmasters and the public.

The problems with the Horizon contract underpin one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK history. But they are also replicated across thousands of other government contracts, including for many essential services, from hip replacements on the NHS to school PE lessons.

These problems are in fact produced by fundamental features of the UK’s outsourcing model.

1. The systems are too complex to understand

The Horizon system was incredibly complex. It had to process all kinds of transactions, from selling travellers cheques to managing rent payments, across tens of thousands of disparate branches, using a complicated web of communications systems.

The problem is, by outsourcing such a complex service, the Post Office ended up without the expertise to understand how it worked and what Fujitsu was (or wasn’t) doing. The contract also limited the amount of information they could get from the system. This all meant that the Post Office lacked the understanding and information about Horizon it would have needed to challenge the story it was getting from Fujitsu.

In its most recent statement on the inquiry into what happened at the Post Office, Fujitsu said “the inquiry has reinforced the devastating impact on postmasters’ lives and that of their families, and Fujitsu has apologised for its role in their suffering … Fujitsu is fully committed to supporting the inquiry in order to understand what happened and to learn from it.”

2. Contracts generate perverse incentives

If a service is complex, like Horizon was, it is impossible to specify everything in a written contract. Any buyer has to miss things out. But then how do they get a supplier to do everything they need and not just the things in the contract?

One of the reasons Horizon had major problems was that it was impossible to say in advance how each bug in the system should be fixed. Instead, the contract just stipulated how quickly Fujitsu needed to resolve problems. Bugs either weren’t fixed properly or the fixes introduced different bugs into the system. This kind of “service level agreement” is still standard in many government contracts.

3. The buyer is locked in

Complex services also require a supplier to invest in things like software, equipment and training that are specific to that service. There’s an idea in economics that if a supplier needs to make these “specialised investments”, it’s very difficult to get rid of that supplier. They have a huge advantage over their competitors, because anyone else would need to make these investments all over again.

This is what happened with the Horizon contract. Once Fujitsu had built the system, it couldn’t be replaced by another supplier, even when things went wrong. In the original procurement, it scored bottom on eight of the ten quality criteria, but won the contract because it said it would pay for the up-front development costs. The contract has since changed, but Fujitsu carried on and has just had its contract renewed up to 2025.

Getting locked into complex contracts is quite common for government. In 2014 HMRC announced that it would end its £8 billion contract with Capgemini for the UK’s tax collection system. It had to assign a budget of £700 million just to pay for the cost of transferring the contract to new suppliers. Now, ten years on, Capgemini is still the supplier. Apparently unable to find an alternative, HMRC ended up extending the contract to at least 2025.

4. Suppliers are prioritised over workers and the public

Because it couldn’t replace them, the Post Office depended on Fujitsu. This was compounded by the fact that Horizon was also essential to the Post Office’s business. Horizon was responsible for processing all branch transactions and keeping track of all money coming in and going out.

Losing Fujitsu would cause huge cost and disruption to an essential system. The Post Office depended on keeping Fujitsu onside during contract negotiations and making sure they were financially healthy. Predictably, they protected that relationship over sub-postmasters, who were individually expendable. This also came at the public’s expense, who got a poor service and have had to foot the bill for the Post Office’s mistake.

Essential public services across the UK rely on a few “strategic suppliers”. Government bodies are dependent on protecting their relationships with these suppliers and are invested in their financial stability. The collapse of Carillion in 2018, at a time when it was contracted to build NHS hospitals, brought home just how bad things could be if a major supplier went under.

How far the government would go to protect other strategic relationships remains to be seen. But as long as UK government bodies outsource complex, essential services, it’s unlikely that the Horizon fiasco will be the last public scandal with a government contract at its heart.

April 17, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Fujitsu ‘managing top-secret military system’ two years after contract expired

Firm embroiled in Post Office scandal reportedly continues to oversee contract that was handed to rival

Fiona Parker, SPECIAL PROJECT CORRESPONDENT, 18 March 2024 ,  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/18/fujitsu-managing-top-secret-uk-military-system/

The IT company whose faulty software is at the centre of the Post Office scandal is reportedly still managing a top-secret UK military system.

Defects in Fujitsu’s Horizon platform led to more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted, after they were blamed for apparent shortfalls in their accounts, which did not actually exist.

However, a source told the i newspaper that the Japanese firm has been managing a secretive computer system facilitating the “strategic command and control of UK Armed Forces” for decades.

The UK intelligence source also claimed Fujitsu was still overseeing the contract, despite it being reallocated to another firm almost two years ago.

The delay in moving Fujitsu away from the project is reportedly because of  the deep ties the IT giant has with UK Government departments, the highly sensitive nature of the contract and waits for new staff to receive security clearance

“The Government doesn’t want to go near them [Fujitsu] after the scandal and they now have the challenge of replacing them across some key areas of defence,” a UK intelligence source told the i.

“But they have been extended time and time again because the new suppliers haven’t been able to get going”.

The newspaper did not reveal further details about the military project, citing national security as a reason for not doing so.

Errors in the Horizon system were confirmed in a 2019 High Court judgement, on a case brought by former sub-postmaster Alan Bates and more than 500 others.

The ruling found that “bugs, errors and defects” in the system caused shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts, which saw some innocent postmasters jailed for theft and false accounting as a result.

Contracts worth billions

Earlier this year, Fujitsu informed the Cabinet Office that it would not bid for UK public contracts while the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal was ongoing.

Yet data published by the Treasury Committee in February showed public organisations affiliated with the Treasury have held more than £3.4 billion worth of contracts with Fujitsu since 2019.

Paul Patterson, the company’s European director, told MPs in January that he was “truly sorry” about the scandal and said the firm had accepted its part in the “appalling miscarriage of justice”.

A UK Government spokesperson told the i that it didn’t recognise the delays caused by security vetting, insisting instead that Fujitsu is “in the transition period between contracts, continuing to deliver their obligations as contractually agreed”.

They added: “More broadly, it is right that Fujitsu has withdrawn from bidding for new public sector contracts until the Post Office Horizon inquiry concludes.”

The Telegraph has contacted Fujitsu for a comment.

April 17, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

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