Commentary on Sections Part 3: Nuclear Regulation Information etc Section 97: Power to obtain information
452.This section allows the ONR to require a person to provide it with any information that it requires for the purposes of carrying out its functions. Refusal or failure to comply with a notice requiring information is a criminal offence (subsection (5)).
453.This section might be used, for example, to require the provision of certain safeguards related information such as records detailing quantities and locations of nuclear material.
454.Notices may impose a continuing requirement to provide information, for example to provide quarterly returns as opposed to simply imposing one-off requirements for information (see subsection (2)).
455.Notices under this section cannot be used where a notice under section 2 of the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000 could be used instead (see subsection (4)). The reason for this is that the 2000 Act contains a specific power to obtain information related to the protocol signed at Vienna on 22nd September 1998 additional to the agreement for the application of safeguards in the United Kingdom in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (the "additional protocol"). This subsection therefore ensures that the specific power in the 2000 Act is used to obtain such additional protocol information rather than the more generic power included in this section.