Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what alternative methods were considered for the disposal of the bomb recently unearthed in Exeter.

In his response to your letter of the 5 March, the Secretary of State described that whilst we do not comment on the specifics of render safe procedures (RSP) or methodology, we can confirm that the full range of RSP options were considered by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team operators and their respective chain of command.