Draft Food and Feed (Chernobyl and Fukushima Restrictions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Food and Feed (Maximum Permitted Levels of Radioactive Contamination) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 General Committees

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I am looking forward to the Minister’s responses to the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West. I want to make a specific reference to Chernobyl and radiation, which will take me less than a couple of minutes.

For the first responders at Chernobyl, 1986 was a year of gruelling radiation poisoning that for ever changed their lives, along with the very fabric of their DNA. With little protection from radiation other than makeshift lead suits, 28 firemen and employees died in the weeks following the event. Radiation was so strong that the skin peeled off their bodies. The Chernobyl firefighters’ eyes turned from brown to blue.

Many others who survived the acute radiation poisoning returned from the clean-up site with a wealth of ongoing health problems from which they never recovered, including Leonid Petrovich Telyatnikov, who was the officer in charge of the Chernobyl firefighters. I had the privilege of meeting him when he came to London shortly afterwards to brief fire brigade managers and senior safety representatives in the UK on nuclear hazards, radiation and fighting in such instances. He survived for some years before succumbing to cancer, which was attributed to his experience at Chernobyl. I want to place on record the heroism of the first responders who dealt with Chernobyl. The House rightly recognises their heroism at regular intervals. As the SI deals with Chernobyl, it would be inappropriate for me not to put that on the record.