A British government proposal to merge the U.K.'s two nuclear police forces would be costly, messy and could create a conflict of interest between protecting British weapons and foreign-owned power stations, the Defense Police Federation has warned.

Britain's Ministry of Defense police looks after nuclear bomb bases
and other military sites, while the Civil Nuclear Constabulary looks
after nuclear power plants. Photograph: Christopher Thomond.

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) have launched a "scoping study" into whether to amalgamate the MoD police, which looks after nuclear bomb bases and other military sites, and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), which has responsibility for nuclear power plants. Both forces differ from the normal police in that they usually carry guns.

But the idea has already run into fierce criticism from the staff association that represents the MoD police rank and file. And other critics have raised fears about the abuse of a merged force for political purposes.

A merger would be "an extremely expensive exercise that would be unlikely to generate any savings in the short or medium term, and would distract from more realistic ways of reducing the MoD's budget deficit," said Eamon Keating, national chairman of the Defense Police Federation.

He pointed out that the MoD police had a much wider role than the CNC, including the ability to carry out investigations, the maintenance of public order and marine activities. "This divergence in roles, training and responsibilities would make any kind of amalgamation rather messy," he told the Guardian news organization.

Because the CNC was responsible for power stations run by the French company, EDF Energy, there "could be a conflict of interest with our responsibility to the MoD estate and the nuclear deterrent," Keating argued.