The NDA told us that its plan for decommissioning Sellafield will take around a hundred years, and has three phases. The current phase, focussing on ‘minimising the risk of offsite consequences’ will last until approximately the 2060s; in the next phase most of the waste will be moved offsite for permanent storage, before the final phase sees all the remaining buildings demolished. The Sellafield site is no longer reprocessing fuel – meaning some of the facilities on the site are no longer required.55 In the words of the Department, “a lot of the work at Sellafield is a race against time [ … ] sorting things out within the lifespans of the existing assets”.56 50 Letter from the Group Chief Executive Officer at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority relating to the oral evidence session held on 20 March on Decommissioning Sellafield, 4 April 2025, page 3 51 Committee of Public Accounts, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: risk reduction at Sellafield, Sixty–Fifth Report of session 2017 –2019, HC 1375, 31 October 2018 52 Letter from the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority relating to Public Accounts Committee’s visit to Sellafield, 17 March 2025, page 3 53 Q 66 54 Q 73 55 Letter from the Group Chief Executive Officer at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority relating to the oral evidence session held on 20 March on Decommissioning Sellafield, 4 April 2025, pages 5–6 56 Q 50 16 The ‘Waste Vitrification Plant’ is a good example – Sellafield Ltd would like to complete processing of ‘highly active liquor’ by 2039 as it expects the plant will be less reliable after that point.57