THE board of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has agreed to sell British Nuclear Group (BNG), the company that was set up to clean up Britain’s most toxic nuclear sites, including Sellafield in Cumbria, The Times has learnt.

The decision to sell the company was taken at a board meeting yesterday, according to unions who have members at the site. The move will be rubber-stamped by the Shareholder Executive, the arm of the Government that oversees state-owned companies, in a few weeks’ time.

BNG’s 15,000 staff, of whom 10,000 work at Sellafield, are expected to be informed today that a decision has been taken to proceed with a 100 per cent disposal of the company, which is expected to raise more than £100 million.

Likely buyers are expected to include Amec, the British project management and engineering group, Serco, the British support services company, and a handful of American engineering groups including Fluor, Bechtel, Jacobs and the Washington Group.

Mike Graham, national secretary of Prospect, the scientific and technical union that has 4,000 members in BNG, said last night that the Government must lay down strict financial, technical and safety criteria for bidders.

“There are some huge questions to be asked here, not only on the part of the workforce but also on behalf of the nation,” he said.

“The British nuclear crown jewels are being sold off only days after Tony Blair talked about the possibility of a new generation of nuclear power stations.”

BNG was formed last year in advance of the transfer of all BNFL’s assets and liabilities to the new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. It began operating as a subsidiary company this April, with its own chief executive, Lawrie Haynes, a BNFL director and former chief executive of the Highways Agency.

The company has a turnover of almost £2 billion and has legacy contracts to begin the clean-up of BNFL’s 14 sites, which include Britain’s magnox nuclear stations as well as the Sellafield complex.

Most of the legacy contracts will run for three years before they are put out to competitive tender.

The Sellafield clean-up contract, the most difficult and expensive, will not be put out to tender for at least four years.

Fluor, Amec, Serco and Jacobs have all expressed an interest in bidding for clean-up contracts and may see buying BNG as a short-cut to acquiring skills and inside knowledge of the former BNFL sites.

BNG has contemplated joint ventures or partnerships with all these companies, but sources say that this route has been rejected in favour of an outright disposal.

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