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Dr. Reid: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is helping to clarify the issues by going into great detail. I can be no clearer than to say that previous Ministers were aware of the trials. I am aware of all the facts that the hon. Gentleman puts and of previous statements, but those events took place 30 years ago, and it is not always immediately apparent to those involved that every aspect of the issue was known to them at the time.
In the natural course of events, those involved would have caused investigations to be carried out, and would have written to people at the time asking for access to
papers. I am giving the hon. Gentleman the latest position: I understand that previous Ministers were aware of the trials. That will be elaborated in due course by the then Ministers themselves, once they have access to the information and have satisfied themselves that they have an accurate picture of events.
Another question raised was whether the local health authority was told of the trials. Nothing in our records, which we have studied, shows who was informed of the trials. However, during the exhibitions in Dorset, to which the hon. Member for Teignbridge and others referred, we were informed by a then employee of the county emergency planning staff that elements of the local authority were aware of the trials. We have also been told that the area health authority, which collected regular medical returns, detected nothing abnormal during or after the trials.
Finally, I was asked a specific question about harmful effects on immuno-compromised people, or people with asthma. In recent years, some people have questioned whether extremely large doses of the material, to which I shall refer later, that was used during the tests causes a problem in certain people, such as immuno-compromised people. I do not suggest that that means anyone to whom hon. Members have referred, but people with AIDS, for example, are classified as immuno-compromised. Although no specific studies have been carried out, the experts consulted do not believe that there would be a problem. Of course, the number of immuno-compromised people in the 1960s was very much smaller than it is now, and such people would be at much greater risk from the large number of other bacteria and viruses present in the atmosphere all the time than they would be from the four to which we shall refer today.
With reference to asthma, there are a large number of bacteria, viruses and other particles of biological origin, such as pollen and fungal spores, in the air all the time. There are no special features of BG--B. globigii--or E. coli that make them any more likely to cause asthma than all the organisms to which people are exposed all their lives.
I have dealt in some detail with those specific points, because I know that the hon. Gentleman and others have taken an interest in the matter over the years.
I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Teignbridge, which, because of his courtesy, I had been able to read in advance. I do not regard the subject as a matter of party politics; it is a matter of national interest, and I am gratified by the way in which it was handled by the hon. Gentleman. I was entirely in accord with that. One would expect a good constituency representative to raise issues that are of particular importance to his constituents.
I listened closely to the hon. Gentleman's thoughtful speech, and to those of other hon. Members. I shall deal with the main issues that he addressed, and if he wants to raise specific points, he will no doubt come back to me during the debate or in writing.
I am aware that the subject is, naturally, of great concern in the west country. I have read with close attention the articles that appeared in the local, and more recently the national, press, and I am therefore pleased to take the opportunity to respond to the points raised this morning.
Before I deal with the hon. Gentleman's specific concerns, I hope that he will allow me to establish for the record some basic facts on which I hope we can all agree. I do so because it is important that the House understands--as I do now, having been briefed in considerable detail--the background to the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises.
The debate relates essentially to a series of trials carried out in the 1960s and 1970s by the former Microbiological Research Establishment, or MRE, at Porton Down. I should make it clear that MRE closed in 1979. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, or DERA, is now responsible for activities at Porton Down.
The tests to which we refer are those that scientists would probably prefer to call biological defence trials. We call them germ warfare tests, which is easier for ordinary people to understand, but the term provokes visions of dangers that might not be borne out when one realises what the tests involved.
The tests were carried out because, during the icy confrontation of the cold war, there was a real concern that infectious, disease-causing biological agents could be used to attack not only our armed forces, but the mainland of the United Kingdom. In retrospect, that may appear an idle invention, but it was not. It was a hard-headed assessment made at the time of a potentially terrifying threat to the British people.
The trials were designed to assess the potential impact of a biological attack on our country, and to determine what level of protection would be needed. The fearful consequences of such an attack, were it to be launched, need no amplification for hon. Members.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East):
In support of the Minister's remarks, may I point out that, in 1992, President Yeltsin confirmed what had been suspected by western intelligence agencies for a long time: that, for 20 years, the Soviet Union had been breaching the 1972 biological weapons convention, whereby it was supposed to have abolished all its offensive biological weapons stocks, and had been carrying out detailed and intensive research on anthrax and other deadly diseases.
Dr. Reid:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who we all know has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of such matters. From my less than encyclopaedic knowledge, I can confirm my memory that that is correct. That revelation was made, as the hon. Gentleman says, within the past six years. Indeed, there is some concern that, even at that point, without the President's full knowledge and authority, the research was still being carried on. Such revelations during the past decade show that the attitude taken 20 years previously was not as melodramatic as it might seem in the more relaxed atmosphere of a thaw in the icy confrontation.
Faced with a dreadful perceived threat, scientists at the time needed to answer important questions, not as a matter of abstract scientific pursuits or as research for the sake of research, but with the practical implication of discharging the first duty of a Government--the protection of their citizens.
Scientists needed to know how far a cloud of bacteria would travel, how long organisms would survive in atmospheric conditions, and how such a cloud could be detected. All those questions had important practical implications for any counter-measures against biological attack.
To determine the answers to those questions, a range of trials was carried out. Some, which took place in many parts of southern England, involved the exposure of micro-organisms to the atmosphere in special apparatus, so that the bacteria were not released at all.
I am well aware that the natural secrecy with which such tests had to be carried out provokes even greater speculation about the meaning of terms such as "special apparatus". Hon. Members will have read accounts that special apparatus was used on London bridge. I can tell hon. Members that they need not worry; I can show them that special apparatus, which I understand is no longer classified. Some of the wilder visions of what it involved can be put to rest by opening up a little of the secrecy. The special apparatus is no longer being used, hon. Members will be pleased to know.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but the House is not used to demonstrations of the kind that he has just made. It will be difficult to record it in the context of the debate, unless he will be good enough to describe what he has produced before the House.
Dr. Reid:
I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is precisely why I brought the apparatus with me. I was not quite sure how one would describe it. It is almost like a fish knife without a middle in it. It is a rectangular piece of metal approximately 1½ in long with a 2 in handle extended on it, round which was wrapped an extremely thin thread, almost of the dimension of a spider's web, which held within it a small number of such bacteria. The apparatus was carried on Waterloo bridge and elsewhere to expose it to the atmosphere, then put away and tested to see whether the bacteria had been killed by the atmosphere. It was as simple as that.
I hope that I have dispelled any visions of London being swamped by bacteria through the use of such special equipment. Hon. Members have heard my description, and I hope that they are somewhat relieved.
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