It claimed the sale of the business would raise concerns about the Government's ability to protect the public interest.BNFL is selling off its US division Westinghouse, which designs and manufactures reactors and fabricates nuclear fuel. It has 15,000 employees and the cost of cleaning up the sites on which it operates is estimated at £48bn.Prospect said it was concerned the taxpayer could lose out through the sale of BNG to a foreign buyer just as the Prime Minister had signalled a renaissance for nuclear power. The company is responsible for 14 nuclear sites around the country, including the fleet of Magnox power stations. The state-owned company that manages most of Britain's civil nuclear sites, including the Sellafield waste reprocessing plant in Cumbria, is to be privatised. The board of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) agreed yesterday to put its subsidiary British Nuclear Group (BNG) up for sale in a move expected to raise £100m to £150m. The decision comes days after Tony Blair indicated his backing for the construction of a new generation of nuclear power stations in Britain and was fiercely criticised by Prospect, the trade union that represents BNFL's scientists and engineers.BNG is likely to attract bids from overseas companies including Bechtel and Fluor of the US, and the UK contractors Amec and Serco.

Disruption from integrating the division into BTC means analysts are predicting that Boots Opticians could lose £10m in the full year.Sales of electrical goods, photo products and food fell at the chemists' chain, while health, beauty and toiletries recorded gains. At Boots Healthcare International, the maker of Nurofen, Strepsils and Clearasil which is up for sale, interim sales rose 7.6 per cent on a comparable basis The division is expected to fetch more than £1.4bn.. The balance of probability is that it will be tough in the second half."Katherine Wynne, at Merrill Lynch, said in a note: "We thought we had already taken a cautious view on Boots' sales outlook, but the lesson of this interim reporting season is that the market has not yet stabilised." She expects underlying sales to fall 1.5 per cent in the second half, knocking £30m off the chain's contribution to group profits.Mr Baker said the group was "fully committed" to its last remaining services business - the opticians arm - despite a 12 per cent drop in its first-half sales. Analysts will have to take their own view." Shares in Boots fell 20.5p to 608.5p.BTC reported a 1.6 per cent fall in underlying sales during its second quarter, which meant its first-half sales were 1.3 per cent weaker.

Price deflation in dispensed medicine knocked the figure by 1 per cent.Mr Baker described the group's performance as "pretty robust" but said: "I've had to be cautious because I just don't see enough out there that gives me reason for optimism. Giving quarter-by-quarter guidance is a mug's game in the current volatile environment. Richard Baker, the chief executive, said the risk had switched to the "downside" after a weak summer hit sales at its core Boots the Chemists (BTC) chain. In a further blow, the group's opticians business plunged into a loss during the first half after customers opted not to change their prescriptions.Merrill Lynch, the group's house broker, cut 11 per cent off its pre-tax profit forecast to £370m and predicted underlying sales would continue to fall.Two months after reiterating the group's target of a 0 to 2 per cent rise in like-for-like sales, Mr Baker said: "It's got tougher than that. Boots beat a retreat from its sales target yesterday, prompting another rash of profit downgrades and a 3 per cent fall in its share price. One in five saidtribunals damaged employee relations.Brendan Barber, the TUC's general secretary, said that "the CBI should not pre-empt the outcomes" of a government review in two years..

may be having an impact on absolute numbers but are unnecessarily complicated and run the risk of undermining business confidence." The CBI, which surveyed 450 businesses, found that all of those with fewer than 50 staff had settled a tribunal claim despite advice that they could have won almost half the cases.Almost half of the total sample said the system was "ineffective". Business leaders have warned that they are losing confidence in the employment tribunal system despite changes to the way it is run. The CBI, the largest employers' group, said companies were "very concerned" about the complexity of new procedures even though the number of cases had fallen since reforms a year ago. The Government said it was aware of the complaints and pledged to ensure the procedures were made less complex. Too many firms were still settling cases they had a strong chance of winning because they feared the cost of going to a tribunal, according to the CBI.John Cridland, its deputy director general, said: "The new tribunal procedures ...