GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS for dealing with radioactive waste were today branded "incoherent and opaque" in a scathing report by a committee of peers.

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee voiced "serious concerns" about the government's handling of the issue and warned the public does not have enough confidence in politicians to accept any nuclear waste scheme driven wholly from Whitehall.

The committee urged the government to set up an independent body, answerable to parliament, to oversee the disposal of nuclear waste in geological repositories deep beneath the ground. And it warned that ministers were moving with "unseemly haste" towards selecting possible sites for waste disposal.

Phased disposal in a deep geological repository was recommended by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) in its report in July 2006. The government - which is hoping to embark on a new wave of nuclear power station development to plug anticipated gaps in Britain's energy supplies - accepted most of CoRWM's recommendations.

But it watered down proposals for the oversight of the disposal process, opting for a "new CoRWM" with advisory powers, rather than a statutory Nuclear Waste Management Commission with direct accountability to MPs and overall responsibility for implementing the programme, as preferred by the Lords committee.

Today's report - entitled Radioactive Waste Management: An Update - branded the government's preferred institutional framework "incoherent and opaque".

The report added: "The government must acknowledge these deficiencies and seek to rectify them by establishing clearer lines of accountability and independent, expert scrutiny."

Committee chairman Lord Broers said: "We have serious concerns about the way the government are moving forward with the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme.

"The decisions we take now on radioactive waste will affect future generations for thousands of years. The government's stop-start approach creates the impression that these decisions are being driven by short-term energy policy goals, rather than by careful and impartial consideration of the scientific and practical realities. The proposals they have announced so far have been incoherent and confusing.

"If the government want people to be confident about the safety of nuclear energy and the disposal of nuclear waste, it is now time to appoint a truly independent, democratically accountable body to oversee the whole process.

"People don't have enough confidence in politicians or the government to support any scheme on nuclear waste that is controlled from Whitehall. Only an independent, accountable and expert body will be able to convince people nationally and locally to sign up to the programme."

Today's committee report also raised concerns about the government's procedures for selecting sites for the disposal of waste.

CoRWM's report proposed a "participative process" under which communities would agree to accept repositories in their areas in return for packagesof state assistance to improve local well-being.

But the Lords committee today insisted it was vital to begin by screening out areas which are inappropriate for deep repositories for geological reasons, before looking at socio-economic criteria and the willingness of communities to host them.

Any other approach risks fuelling suspicions that sites are being chosen for political, rather than scientific reasons, warned the committee. Any suggestion that particular areas are being targeted for disposal sites would inevitably lead to "anxiety among local communities".

In an earlier report on radioactive waste management in 1999, the committee called for "steady and measured" progress on an issue which would have knock-on effects for millennia to come.

But today, its report said: "Instead, we have had years of procrastination followed by what now appears to be unseemly haste. This is not the way to inspire public confidence."

Publication of a government consultation document on disposal should be delayed until an independent body has been put in place to scrutinise the programme, the committee said.