Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential link between the location of mobile telephone masts and the increased incidence of (a) cancers and (b) migraines.

Government policy is that exposures to electromagnetic fields from mobile phone masts and other radio-transmitting equipment should comply with the guidelines on limiting exposure from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

The former Health Protection Agency published a comprehensive review of the evidence prepared by its independent Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation (AGNIR) in 2012. The Group’s overall conclusion was that although a substantial amount of research has been conducted in this area, there is no convincing evidence that electromagnetic field exposures below guideline levels cause health effects in either adults or children.

Included within the AGNIR report are chapters covering the evidence as to whether there is a link between exposures and symptoms such as headaches/migraines (Chapter 6) and cancer (Chapter 8). As implied by AGNIR’s overall conclusion above, the evidence does not support the existence of such links. The AGNIR report can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/radiofrequency-electromagnetic-fields-health-effects