A team of Oxford scientists has warned that a new wave of nuclear power stations would increase the country's vulnerability to terrorist attacks.

The Oxford Research Group called on the Government to abandon nuclear power on security grounds and pursue renewable supplies such as wind, wave and solar energy.

The group told MPs yesterday that, as well as the risk of attacks on nuclear reactors, the prospect of terrorists getting their hands on waste plutonium was a 'near certainty'.

In a memorandum to the Commons environmental audit committee, it stated: "The plutonium from the first generation of UK civil reactors must be kept isolated from the environment and out of terrorist hands for at least one-third of a million years.

"Over such a period even a small yearly probability of a successful raid becomes a near certainty.

"How will we be viewed by the 10,000 generations which must protect the waste plutonium of two generations from the successors of al-Qaida?"

The Oxford Research Group's evidence to the Committee comes as the Government is drawing up plans to replace the current generation of nuclear power stations.

Most of them will come to the end of their lives over the next 15 years and ministers must decide whether to build more or find other energy sources.

Dr Keith Barnham, of the Oxford Research Group, told the committee: "The outcome of a terrorist attack is so terrible, we feel it has to be faced up to before any new-build.

"We already have so many potential targets as a consequence of our waste policy."