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Mr. Ian Bruce: Although I echo my hon. Friend's tribute to the work at Porton Down and to the good sense of the scientists involved, would he not agree that to carry out perfectly safe experiments but not tell people would not be acceptable today? On that basis, surely we ought to have all the information that would have been released if the experiments of the past 30 years were going on today?
Mr. Key: I am delighted to acknowledge that my hon. Friend has stolen my final lines. Of course he is right--times have changed.
As constituency Member of Parliament for Porton Down, I have received inquiries about this issue and I have pursued them; but, since March, I have had no further representations from the local community, who are those most likely to be affected by any adverse reaction to the work of Porton Down. There is great local confidence in the work of the two establishments there, but I agree that we need to understand far more about why the experiments and trials are conducted in the first place.
The work is conducted primarily in order to protect our service men and women and the platforms or vehicles in which they work--be those helicopters, aircraft, ships, tanks, land rovers, tents or only protective suits.
Mr. Nicholls:
I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend so rudely--it is hard to catch his eye when I am sitting right behind him. For the avoidance of any doubt, I wish
Like my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce), I ask only that we should find out what happened. Unless we are about to hear some revelation from the Minister of State, which I suspect is unlikely, I have no criticism to make of the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) or of staff at Porton Down.
Mr. Key:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reassurance, which I know will be noted by the scientific community at the Porton Down establishments and beyond.
We must understand that there are real threats. That fact is supported by the declarations made to the United Nations special commission by Iraq in the matter of its biological weapons programme, and by the use of a chemical weapon on the Tokyo subway shortly afterwards. There is no doubt that the threat exists, so we must understand how chemical and biological agents are dispersed and how they can be detected. That was what the trials we are debating were designed to discover, and the work done all those years ago was of real benefit to us all.
As for the incidents mentioned, I have been reassured by John Chisholm, the chief executive of DERA, who wrote to me on 20 March. He made it absolutely clear that
I warmly welcome the greater openness that we have seen at those establishments. I recognise that times have changed. The standards that were acceptable 30, 40 and more years ago are not acceptable today, and I am sure that the Government would wish to do all they can to be as open as possible in that respect.
However, we all need to put our minds to greater public education and awareness of what goes on at those establishments and why, and what we are protecting our troops and civilian communities at home for. If we can answer those questions, the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge will be much reassured, and so will everyone else.
10.19 am
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid):
I thank all those who have spoken this morning: the hon. Members for Totnes (Mr. Steen), who has had to go to a Committee meeting, for Torbay (Mr. Sanders), for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce), for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), and for Salisbury (Mr. Key). I congratulate the hon. Member for Teignbridge on having the good fortune and good sense to raise such an important issue. Hon. Members have raised this issue in an extremely responsible fashion, without being uncritical. I assure them that I am aware of both the anxieties and the importance which their constituents attach to it.
I shall refer to a number of issues raised by the hon. Member for Teignbridge and others, but if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall refer first to a number of specific issues that were raised by the hon. Member for South Dorset.
The first was about a letter addressed to me, which was apparently diverted. My general rule on those matters is that, when a Member of Parliament writes to me, he is entitled to expect that the Minister will deal with the issue. I have caused inquiries to be made, and can confirm that the letter was received, and erroneously sent on to the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency.
In view of what the hon. Member for South Dorset said, I shall ensure that the letter receives the attention it deserves at DERA, but he may, as he said, wish to write to me again. This time, we shall see whether Wells Fargo manages to get the mail through to the Minister's office. I shall then personally answer the points that he raises.
The hon. Member for South Dorset then asked about ministerial approval, advice and so on. He is aware that the general convention that applies to all incoming Ministers is that we are not entitled to see the advice proffered by civil servants or others to previous Ministers. I am therefore somewhat restricted, as I cannot gain access to the personal papers.
Mr. Letwin:
Will the Minister give way?
Dr. Reid:
If the hon. Gentleman will let me finish this point, it may satisfy his question.
At the time of the trials, the Ministry of Defence was advised on safety by part of the then Government's scientific advisory council, which was called the biological research advisory board--in the context of a Department that loves acronyms, he will be pleased to know that it was called BRAB--and included a range of independent and eminent academics. It is understood that Ministers were aware of the trials. The hon. Member for South Dorset raised that specific point, so I hope that that clears up any ambiguity.
Mr. Ian Bruce:
I am grateful to the Minister for his response, but will he clarify the following point? The previous Minister made it clear that he could not see most of the ministerial advice given to the previous Labour Administration, and one accepts that rule. Given that the previous Minister could see everything that happened under the Conservative Administration--he gave me assurances about what was happening in that respect--can
Dr. Reid:
I shall have that investigated. I understand that I am not entitled to go back to those papers. It is a matter not of party politics but of subsequent consecutive Administrations.
Mr. Alan Clark (Kensington and Chelsea):
It is to protect civil servants.
Dr. Reid:
As the hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position, it is to protect civil servants, and the impartiality of their advice depends on such protection. If it did not exist, the advice given might be mitigated by a fear of future impingement on that confidentiality.
Mr. Alan Clark:
Will the Minister give way?
Dr. Reid:
I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who has an esteemed past as a Defence Minister.
Mr. Clark:
I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way, particularly as I have only just walked into this debate, although I listened to some of the earlier speeches.
Can the Minister confirm that documents will come into the public domain under the 30-year rule? That is a rolling process, and we hope that any advice tendered to his predecessors will soon be available for public scrutiny.
Dr. Reid:
Yes, I can confirm that. I shall cover that general point in my speech, but at this stage I was dealing with the specific questions asked by the hon. Member for South Dorset. I thought that I was being specific enough by telling him, to clear up any ambiguities, that I understand that previous Ministers were aware of the trials.
Mr. Ian Bruce:
The Minister knows that the noble Lord, Lord Healey has written to the Cabinet Secretary asking that the civil service look again at his past papers and advise him on whether he had been briefed. He denies that he was briefed about those tests, and says that he knew nothing about them. That gives rise to concern.
"The majority of these studies involved no release of biological material whatsoever and were conducted using organisms in different environmental conditions."
He also reassured me that
"The work in public areas would have been subject to clearance by Ministry of Defence committees, external to the research establishments concerned, before approval was given to go ahead."
He concluded:
"I must stress that the simulant substances that were released were harmless organisms commonly found in soil, grassland and hay throughout the United Kingdom and were not judged to present a risk to the general population."
It is of the greatest importance to the protection of service men and the general public that work at the two establishments at Porton Down continues--indeed, in an uncertain and unstable world, there is a strong case for enhancing and expanding the effort put into their work.
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