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Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth): I find this difficult to understand. When people wrote to the Ministry a few years ago, the Ministry denied that dosimeters had been issued. When photographic evidence was provided,
the Ministry said that the reason was not related to any risk that might be incurred; it said that the intention had been to make a film for training purposes, to show people what the meters looked like. This has been a catalogue of misinformation and deceit from day one. The trouble is that the small number of veterans who went down the dirty path were used as a control group.
Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend is right. The same has happened on other occasions and in other instances. I tabled dozens of questions about problems relating to Gulf war syndrome and organophosphates, but was told by the then Government that there had been no problem, and that organophosphates had not been used. Some months later, however, the Government had to make a statement saying that I had been misled.
The Minister should bear in mind the fact that Roff is using the methodology that has frequently been used in other studies conducted by the same people who undertook the MOD studies. Her methodology is perfectly legitimate, but it calls into question the validity of the findings of major studies using another methodology. That is a common experience in medical and scientific research; what is less common is the refusal of major Government agencies to accept the implications of the findings. That is why today's debate is taking place.
Let me remind the Minister what was written in a confidential document--declassified by his own Department on 26 January 1985--by the rear admiral who was in charge of Britain's first atomic bomb in 1951. In a memorandum to Vice-Admiral Brooking, he wrote:
In March 1991, the then Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent, South ended his Adjournment debate on nuclear test veterans with the words
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Spellar):
The debate gives me two opportunities. First, it gives me the opportunity to record our appreciation of the work of service personnel--many doing their national service--who took part in our nuclear testing programme in Australia and the south Pacific. The atmospheric tests carried out in the 1950s were a major contribution to British development of our independent nuclear deterrent--not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) unfortunately claimed, for the sake of Ministers' egos, but as part of our national security effort.
Secondly, the debate gives me an opportunity to make clear to the House, and to those who will read the record, the facts of the matter with regard to the nuclear tests. I hope to answer most of my hon. Friend's questions in the time left to me, but I shall write to him about those that I cannot answer now.
Between 1952 and 1958, the United Kingdom conducted 21 nuclear tests in Australia and the Pacific. Those tests, which all took place in the atmosphere, ranged in yield from 1 kilotonne to 3 megatonnes. The purpose of the tests was to develop the United Kingdom's independent nuclear deterrent--an aim which was achieved with distinction by the personnel who were involved.
In 1962, the United States conducted nuclear tests off Christmas Island, at which some United Kingdom service personnel were also present. It would be quite wrong to assert, as some have asserted, that the health of service men and other personnel who were attending the atmospheric tests was not an absolute priority. Formal and well documented procedures were in place to ensure the safety of personnel in Australia and at Christmas Island. A standard safety drill at all UK atmospheric tests was for personnel to be mustered at a safe distance and to be ordered to face away from the blast while covering their eyes with their hands. Those measures eliminated the risk of being blinded by the flash, and minimised the risk of injury from flying debris.
The vast majority of personnel who were present during tests were mustered in areas that were known to be safe from the effects of blast, heat and any prompt or residual radiation. At Christmas Island, for example, the muster points were in the areas of the main camp and the port, each of which was some 25 miles from the detonations.
The mass of evidence shows that the health and safety of the trial participants were regarded very seriously, and that a great deal of trouble was taken over radiological protection. In nuclear tests, the distance from the explosions was a major safety feature. The Monte Bello islands, Maralinga, and Christmas Island were all chosen as test sites because there was a great deal of space. I was slightly surprised by my hon. Friend's comments about choosing those locations. Because of that space, it was not necessary to provide universal personal monitoring for all participants. These safety judgments were borne out by real-time environmental monitoring.
While the vast majority of personnel were mustered well outside the range of the radiation effects, a small number of specialist staff who were required to be closer to monitor the test, could have been at risk. Those people, most of whom were technical staff from the Atomic Weapons Establishment, and who were very much closer to the detonations, were sheltered. Any exposure was monitored, and, if necessary, decontamination took place. The same monitoring and decontamination regime applied to some aircrew who were involved in the tests.
Measures were taken in two ways to protect the civil population in Australia and Christmas Island from radiation hazards. First, they were kept out of the danger areas and, secondly, it was ensured that fall-out did not harm them outside those areas. Residual radiation at Maralinga in Australia, where certain trials took place until 1963, has been dealt with by a programme of site rehabilitation. As my hon. Friend rightly said, there was an agreement between the United Kingdom and Australia to deal with that. The agreement on personnel was a typical one between two countries, and most of the money was for cleaning up the site.
Separate and independent studies by Washington university in 1975 and by the New Zealand Department of Health in 1981 confirmed the findings of a 1964 atomic weapons research establishment study that, radiologically, the tests at Christmas Island had no impact on the islanders' environment, and had not contributed to any current or past health problems among the local population. I am slightly surprised that my hon. Friend was unconvinced by the evidence on that, and especially by the evidence from the New Zealand Government.
Mr. Llew Smith:
My comments about Australia were not intended as a criticism of the payment of compensation. They were about the failure to recognise that the compensation should be applicable not only to Australians who were affected but to British service personnel and medical auxiliaries.
Mr. Spellar:
As I have said, most of the money was to be used to clean up the site. Inevitably, the Australian Government rightly asked us for indemnity to cover them for any compensation claims against them, because they are responsible for aborigines who might have been in the territory and for Australian personnel. We were responsible for British personnel. That is the standard procedure, and any proven connections between presence at the tests and the induction of radiologically determined cancers would bring people within the scope of the United Kingdom's war pensions scheme. We are working on facts rather than on assertions. I shall shortly deal with that.
The subsequent position of the nuclear test veterans, which was outlined by my hon. Friend, has been the subject of detailed studies by the National Radiological Protection Board, which produced its initial report in 1988 and a follow-up one in 1993. The studies involved the medical records of no fewer than 21,000 veterans--some 85 per cent. of the total. The health of those veterans was compared with that of a similar control group of 22,000 personnel.
The 1993 NRPB report clearly concluded:
It is significant that the NRPB report was peer reviewed prior to publication in the British Medical Journal. Those conducting the studies included Professor Sir Richard Doll, a most eminent and respected epidemiologist, who is a world authority in his field and who was responsible for the pioneering work that established the clear connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
"radiological safety must be one of the chief concerns of the naval commander . . . I believe that all Government servants are in fact entitled to compensation for injury on duty".
I agree, and I trust that the Minister agrees.
"What the men need is justice. "--[Official Report, 20 March 1991; Vol.188, c. 377.]
That is just as true today. It is unforgivable that those men have had to wait seven long years, when so many have died painful deaths. The people--and, indeed, Parliament--deserve much better.
12.48 pm
"participation in the test programme has not had a detectable effect on the participants' expectation of life, nor on their risk of developing cancer or other fatal diseases".
Not only is the NRPB an independent advisory body to the Government, but the nuclear test veterans study group included representatives of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, an independent charity of unimpeachable credentials.
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