Dalgety Bay
Debate between Gordon Brown and Andrew Murrison(10 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) on securing this debate—his fourth on the subject since November 2011. Believe me, Mr Speaker, I sincerely hope that he will not have cause to call a further debate, and that some of the things I say today will reassure him about what is happening and what is to be done in the near future, and that that will be helpful for him and his constituents.
As he said, I visited Dalgety Bay in July to see the situation for myself, and I have read the case file in depth. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have taken a close personal interest in this matter. We now have the draft outline management options appraisal report dated 30 September. That has been shared with SEPA and will be published early in the new year. I would be surprised if he has not had sight of it already, but if he has not, I will ensure he gets a copy.
Following a meeting between SEPA, the MOD and Public Health England on 28 November, the preliminary findings of the detailed risk assessment, heralded in July, will be available early in the new year. I think SEPA has now agreed that both are needed to determine a credible and coherent way forward.
Contrary to the impression that the right hon. Gentleman and others continue to give, the MOD has never sought to abdicate its legal responsibilities, much less “pass the buck” or delay progress in reaching a resolution. We have been upfront about the Department’s historical activities and the part they might have played in introducing radium into what was the royal naval air station Donibristle and HMS Merlin. Moreover, he will recall that we previously intervened to remove contaminated material from gardens within the housing estate that now occupies the former defence sites, while taking care to avoid blighting his constituents’ properties. Furthermore, removal of contaminated material is one of the options contained in the September options appraisal.
To date, our support to SEPA alone has cost in excess of £1 million. Work undertaken by the Department has included: a site investigation; an ongoing monitoring and recovery programme; continual work to reduce the hazard by removing any radioactive contaminants found; and most recently work to develop the more detailed risk assessment necessary to inform the discussion and development of an effective long-term management strategy. This work has the support of both SEPA and Public Health England, which, despite its name, is also responsible to the Scottish Government.
As the right hon. Gentleman would expect, the MOD sought legal advice, and this has been shared with SEPA. Senior counsel’s advice deals with judicial review of SEPA’s risk assessment, SEPA’s appropriate person report, to which he referred, and the statutory guidance on which it apparently relies, and the advice is that this matter could be subject to a judicial review favourable to the MOD. That opinion was informed by acknowledged experts in radiological assessment, as he would expect. Rather than seeking to settle the matter by potentially expensive, protracted and divisive legal means, however, my Department favours dialogue and the development of a robust evidence-based understanding of the risk that accords with established best practice and is scientifically rigorous.
I understand the frustration caused and the impatience of the right hon. Gentleman and his constituents with the clean-up, and I can assure him that we are genuinely working as fast as we can, with the parties concerned, to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. He will understand better than most, however, the complexity and the scientific and technical difficulties posed by the site. I am reliably informed that the site is unusual and that that has resulted in some of the delays to which he referred. I hope he agrees that, without the understandings I have mentioned, it is not possible to engage all interested parties in developing and delivering a viable long-term solution that is proportionate to the risk. It remains open to SEPA, if it is confident of its reports, to designate the MOD as an appropriate person, triggering either acquiescence by MOD or a legal challenge, but to date there has been no such designation.
The right hon. Gentleman has not specified precisely what remedial action he seeks. If I can be candid with him—he has referred to this too—I fear large opportunity costs translating to waste where there is negligible risk to public health. He will know that if the MOD concedes this case without identifying where any significant health risk might emanate on the site, the precedent could cost hundreds of millions of pounds in extensive and unnecessary remedial work across the country. Statute calls for a risk-based approach, but it remains doubtful whether there is a significant risk of harm. It is also unclear whether the activities undertaken on the land after my Department vacated the site changed the risk by potentially exposing the public to contamination.
Ultimately, the presence of radium at Dalgety Bay must be viewed and addressed in the light of the statutory regime for contaminated land, rather than the correspondence from the 1990s to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, or concepts such as ALARA —as low as reasonably achievable—designed primarily for other purposes.
The draft report from the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment states that
“there does not appear to be a current risk from external radiation”.
I take that to mean gamma and beta radiation. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards has previously concluded that the likelihood of a member of the public inadvertently ingesting an object contaminated with radium that could cause them significant harm is less than one in 10 million. I remind him that, in 1998, he was aware of the view that the annual risk of contracting a fatal cancer through inadvertent inhalation or ingestion was found to be less than one in 1 million—something that he regarded then as a “negligible risk”. Indeed, he pointed out at the time that it is more negligible than the risks run by people living among the granite of Aberdeen.
After the right hon. Gentleman made his remarks, a scoping risk assessment was undertaken by the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards in 2012. It took account of the two high-activity objects found in late 2011 and two subsequent objects found in April 2012, and, together with the current management measures, concluded that the risk of attributable cancer from Dalgety Bay was actually less than one in 10 million. That is less than the risk that informed the right hon. Gentleman’s 1998 reassurance by an order of magnitude. In addition, the most recent cancer report collated by COMARE found no evidence of the occurrence of cancers in the local population that would ordinarily be attributed to the presence of radium-226.
The right hon. Gentleman—who was of course Chancellor, then Prime Minister, between 1997 and 2010 —did nothing on this subject during that time other than to announce that his constituents faced a negligible risk of harm in 1998. I have to say to him that he needs to be very careful indeed about raising fears in his local population. He knows full well that the Government will comply with statute, but I have told him that we will go beyond that. We will voluntarily play our full and proper part in protecting public health, but that has to be evidence based and underpinned by a proper risk assessment.
Mr Gordon Brown
I think the Minister knows—and no one should be under any other impression—that it was only in 2010 and 2011 that the scale of the particles appearing on the surface became so great that we had to have the extra investigations, to find out what needed to be done. The main point, which should not be evaded when we are talking about all the other issues in this debate, is that this clean-up will have to happen. The engineering options will have to be set out, and the Ministry of Defence will have to accept responsibility. When the Minister presents the options paper in January, will he narrow down the options to those that are realistic, and then have an immediate public consultation on them? Will he then agree to set a timetable under which he will agree to fund the chosen option? We have agreed that he wants to dispense with lawyers whenever possible. Let us now have a sensible timetable so that we can get this done. We must not go through another winter with this contamination rising to the surface.
Dr Murrison
I have given the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that I want to see this sorted out quickly. There are two bits of material that are necessary in order to do it properly. One is the options appraisal study to which I have referred. It is currently in draft form and will be published very soon. The other is the risk assessment. The two need to tie in together because we cannot otherwise make a determination on which option to choose, or on whether to choose a mixture of some of the options, in order to obviate the various risks that might be posed by contaminants across this complicated site. I think it is true to say that SEPA now agrees that both those elements will be necessary in order to plan credibly and comprehensively for the future at Dalgety Bay. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is getting a sense that those two things are now coming together very quickly, and that we will be in a position to make a determination on this matter, which I hope he will find satisfactory, very soon.
Dr Murrison
Before the right hon. Gentleman intervenes again, may I just comment on the objects that were found and the influence they had on the assessment of risk? As I said, the risk was determined at one in a million. That went down to one in 10 million. It was the same organisation that did the assessments. What had changed were the mitigation measures taken, notwithstanding the finding of the four high-intensity objects.
Mr Brown
I accept what the Minister says, but the health protection organisation that advises him has said that this work has to be done. I repeat: the clean-up will have to happen. It is right that the engineering options are investigated in detail so we can target where the remedial work must be done, but I put this again to the Minister, as I think he misunderstood me: when he publishes his options paper in January, having a range of all possible options will simply mean another few months of delay. Can he not narrow down the options by January, so that we can then set a realistic timetable to get the work done, and proper funding for it, as well as the public consultation exercise? There is one kind of options paper that looks at everything. There is a specific type of options paper, which was promised and which should be done by January, that looks at the main and realistic options for cleaning up as soon as possible.
Dr Murrison
Yes, of course, but it is not a decision to be taken unilaterally by the MOD; SEPA will wish to take a view and it has a copy of the draft paper already. It will want to make a determination, it has said, once it is in possession of the risk assessment to which it has contributed and, indeed, which it has formed in a way, because it has insisted on particular data sets making up that exercise.
Dalgety Bay (Radiation)
Debate between Gordon Brown and Andrew Murrison(11 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)
I start by warmly congratulating the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) on securing this debate. It is an important subject and he has expressed his views passionately, as I would expect. He has been, if I may say so, an assiduous Member of Parliament in his attention to this matter, securing Adjournment debates in November 2011 and in March this year. My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary tells me that the right hon. Gentleman has also had a long conversation with him, when he covered much of the ground that he covered this evening and which I hope to cover in the time available to me tonight.
I well understand the right hon. Gentleman’s passion for this subject given his long association with the area and the local community he represents, and if he is agreeable to the notion, I look forward to visiting Dalgety Bay before too long. We have a duty to those we represent to present a balanced view that neither sensationalises nor causes unnecessary anxiety, and I know the right hon. Gentleman will want to do just that. Contrary to the impression he gave, however, the Ministry of Defence has never sought to abdicate its legal responsibilities, much less “pass the buck”. In fact, we have acknowledged that in all likelihood our historical activities introduced radium into what was Royal Naval Air Station Donibristle and HMS Merlin. Moreover, we have demonstrated a serious commitment to supporting the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and expended £825,000 to date undertaking a site investigation, as well as a monitoring and recovery programme along the foreshore. The right hon. Gentleman will recall the work we have undertaken in a number of gardens belonging to his constituents where radium was discovered, at a cost of some £500,000.
On recent statements in the press concerning a memo allegedly from the MOD, the document we are aware of, dated December 1990, is from Her Majesty’s industrial pollution inspectorate to the Scottish Office—I think that is what the right hon. Gentleman referred to in his remarks. We have found no evidence to corroborate claims that 800 aircraft were destroyed in 1946 through burning, and the resultant waste material—including ash—deposited on the beach or within the headland prior to 1959. Interestingly, the memo mentions the disposal by burial of waste arising from the scrapping of aircraft at a location inland from the beach, which we understand may be a former quarry. The memo also appears to acknowledge the MOD’s willingness to assist the regulator, then Her Majesty’s industrial pollution inspectorate—a situation not dissimilar to today when the MOD is assisting SEPA with its statutory inspection of the beach and adjacent shoreline.
The question is whether there is significant risk of significant harm, and the extent to which the activities of those who controlled the land after the MOD impacted on the current situation. The right hon. Gentleman cannot dismiss the latter point because that is the statutory test.
Mr Gordon Brown
Has the Minister read the risk assessment and the appropriate persons report? If he has, will he acknowledge that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has established beyond any reasonable doubt that none of the people whom the Ministry of Defence thought may have been responsible for adding to pollution in the area is deemed responsible? If the statutory agency responsible for reporting on these matters is not believed by the Ministry of Defence, what are we to believe?
Dr Murrison
It is not a question of not believing statutory agencies, but I must report to the right hon. Gentleman that SEPA has been less than helpful in this matter. That is why there is a need for a further meeting, which my officials have scheduled, at which I hope such issues will be fully worked through. I am sure he would agree that in matters such as this where there is controversy over the evidence, and particularly the risk assessment that is central to this—
Dr Murrison
If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will get back to him when I can. It is essential in controversial matters such as this that we are absolutely clear about the science, and particularly the risk assessment. That lies at the heart of our difficulty with some of the work that SEPA has done. At the end of this month, however, officials will meet SEPA and—particularly in the light of evidence to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded that may be forthcoming in the next few days—I hope we will be able to plot a way forward.
Mr Brown
Will the Minister publish the advice that was given to the Ministry of Defence before it talked to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of pollution? Will he tell us, as a freedom of information issue—I have asked for this information to be provided—what Ministry of Defence officials said to those people who were in touch with the inspectorate when it prepared the report in 1990? As far as the advice on the risk assessment is concerned, the Ministry of Defence’s objections essentially come down to one major point: it suggests that it does not believe that these sources have been found at the level of radiation required. Yet the people who have actually been doing the excavation are contractors employed by the Ministry of Defence.
Dr Murrison
I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has submitted a freedom of information request, and of course we will, as far as we can, respond to it. I must say that we have already looked for some of the documents cited by SEPA but cannot find them. Naturally, we will comply with whatever he requests, and if we have the information, will certainly provide it to him.
I believe that considerations of the sort I have outlined in relation to risk and who is responsible for management of the land are germane to this discussion. Indeed, they are key to understanding whether designation is required and how the material has come to be within the foreshore. Ultimately, the presence of radium at Dalgety Bay must be viewed and addressed in the light of the statutory regime for contaminated land, rather than correspondence from the 1990s.
Dr Murrison
Well, the aim of the Ministry of Defence is to do the right thing. We are bound by statute, but I hope that it will not come to statute because, as I have explained, our intention is to comply with statutory authorities voluntarily, but we need to explore the methodology that has gone into their assessment and take into account the views of Public Health England, which, despite its name, is of course the adviser to the Scottish Government on radiation matters—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath says from a sedentary position that it has given its view, but I think that he has given a partial account of it. If I can make some progress, perhaps I will be able to give a fuller account of what Public Health England has actually said.
My technical and legal experts have reviewed the two most recent reports by SEPA and identified issues relating to the adequacy and validity of both the risk assessments and the appropriate person report. Those concerns relate to the interpretation and use of fundamental scientific and legal principles. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has had sight of the independent review by the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, formally part of the Health Protection Agency, but I must say that it hardly gives a ringing endorsement of SEPA’s approach and shows that many of our concerns are well founded. Those concerns lie at the heart of what this is all about and what I think he is trying to characterise as our unwillingness to make progress on the matter, which I think is unfair. I hope that he will understand that, when faced with professional opinion—
Dr Murrison
If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will continue, because I think that I have been reasonably generous in giving way. I have four minutes left and it is important to put forward the Government’s side on the matter.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will understand that when we are faced with evidence that is not entirely congruous in some important respects, it is essential that we take stock. A robust, evidence-based risk assessment is required that accords with accepted best practice and is scientifically rigorous. Without it, we simply cannot understand the level of risk posed to health and ensure that suitable and sufficient measures are in place to protect the public.
To that end, we have previously emphasised to SEPA the importance of a credible risk assessment and raised serious concerns with it about its approach, concerns that have been reinforced by the findings of the recent review undertaken by the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, which concluded that the likelihood of a member of the public inadvertently ingesting an object contaminated with radium that could cause them significant harm is less than one in 10 million. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that radium is predominantly an alpha emitter, so ingestion is the key route by which harm can occur, notwithstanding the fact that radium and its decay products emit both beta and gamma radiation. SEPA confirmed at the last Dalgety Bay forum in May that the management measures currently in place remain sufficient to manage the risk to the public such that the risk remains very low, and arguably these measures exclude any area at Dalgety Bay from designation.
The right hon. Gentleman will recall that in his first Adjournment debate he openly acknowledged that up until October 2011, when two high-activity items were discovered, there had been no evidence to suggest that there was a potential threat of any significance to public health or, for that matter, the presence of extensive contamination. As early as 1998, the annual risk of contracting a fatal cancer through inadvertent inhalation or ingestion was found to be less than one in 1 million: in his words, a “negligible risk”. He also went on to draw comparison between—
Dr Murrison
No, I will not. I do not have time; I am very sorry.
The right hon. Gentleman also went on to draw comparison between Aberdeen and Dalgety Bay based on a 1995 study that found that the highest ambient external radiation dose rate found at Dalgety Bay was two thirds of that found naturally in the granite in Aberdeen.
The scoping risk assessment undertaken by the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards in 2012, which took account of the two high-activity objects found in late 2011 and the subsequent find in April 2012, together with the current management measures, concluded that the risk of attributable cancer was actually less than one in 100 million. In addition, the most recent cancer study published by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment in December 2012, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, found no evidence of the occurrence of cancers in the local population that could be attributed to the presence of radium-226.
Dr Murrison
I have one minute left and I will not give way.
I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman, who was of course in high office for 13 years and did nothing on this subject, that he needs to be very careful indeed about raising fears in his local population. He knows full well that Government will comply with statute but, more than that, will do anything they can voluntarily to protect public health, but it has to be on the grounds of science and a proper risk assessment. To that end, my officials will be meeting SEPA later this month to discuss the methodological problems with the science and come to some sort of way ahead. I personally look forward to visiting Dalgety Bay in the very near future, and I look forward to further discussions with the right hon. Gentleman on this subject.
Question put and agreed to.