HC Deb 03 May 1957 vol 569 cc598-608

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. R. Thompson.]

3.57 p.m.

Mr. Hector Hughes (Aberdeen, North)

It would be difficult to find in the history of mankind a problem of more general urgency than that of preserving the world's food supply from contamination by strontium 90 released by modern hydrogen bomb tests. It would seem to me axiomatic that any Government which promotes such tests should, as a condition precedent, provide protection against the dire, terrifying and horrifying results from worldwide contaminated food.

The questions I want the Minister to answer are these. What protection is being provided? What is being done towards international agreement on this urgent matter? Why are there no urgent meetings of heads of Governments? Why has no decision of the United Nations been sought? What is the policy of the British Government? Why should these tests not be banned among civilised nations in the same way as poison gas has been banned? Alternatively, why not specify Civil Defence methods in detail combined with training in food protection against the contamination threat?

My object is to draw attention to the non-disclosure of protective measures for preserving mankind from the disasters which threaten it with cancer, leukaemia and agonising death from radioactive food. I hope, by this means, to stimulate international activity in this matter, to elicit British Government policy, to minimise the risks and to eliminate the dangers from which our own and future generations otherwise may be afflicted.

Whatever be my own views on the manufacture, testing and use of hydrogen bombs, I shall not complicate this debate by discussing their abolition, either multilateral or unilateral. What I want to know is what the Governments are doing, and, in particular, what the British Government are doing, aided by science, to save the British people's food from the contamination which bomb tests precipitate. My purpose is not party political or partisan in any way—

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. R. Thompson.]

Mr. Hughes

As I was saying, my purpose is not party political or partisan in any way, but purely humanitarian, to save the nation's food supply from contamination.

During the last few months, I have asked many Parliamentary Questions on this subject. but the Answers, recorded in HANSARD, were not informative, persuasive, conclusive or indicative of any settled policy towards protecting British food. I have been driven to other sources. I am not a scientist myself, except, perhaps, in the science of law, but in this matter I have gained the assistance of scientists, and I wish now to express my thanks for that assistance to the Atomic Scientists' Association, to Professor J. S. Roblat, its chairman; to Dr. Patricia J. Lindop, of the Fisheries Section; and to Dr. H. R. Allen, Secretary of both the Atomic Scientists' Association and of the Imperial College of Science. With their aid I venture—I hope modestly but, perhaps, with a little authority—to lay before the House the actual facts of the matter.

The facts are these. Hydrogen bomb tests produce radioactive strontium 90. This, if taken into the human or other animal system in certain quantities is likely in our own and future generations to cause bone cancer, leukaemia—a type of cancer of the blood—disease of the reproductive organs, and other present and delayed action which may extend to future generations. Evidence is accumulating that even low doses of radioactivity may be hazardous to human life.

It may well be asked how this radioactive strontium 90 is likely to get into humans and other animals. The answer is that it may reach them in these three ways: by effluent; by sea or air contamination; and by fall-out, which is the same kind of thing.

As to the first, it may come from effluent from atomic power stations, and atomic power stations are now being erected in Britain. There have been examples of biological contamination through river waters and leakages from such stations. For instance, the Columbia River, below Hanford Power Station, in the United States of America, has been found to show radioactive elements in excess of the background. It is fair to add that no biological damage has so far been traced to low levels of radiation from this source, but the risk continues and may increase.

Secondly, the contamination may come from direct and immediate fall out from an explosion like that at Bikini. There, intense local contamination was detected in the sea and in the local fish and plankton of the area. It is important to note that plankton and fish concentrate up to ten thousand times the activity of radioactive products in the sea, such as radio strontium and caesium. These products stay in their bodies for a long time, and from them flow certain results.

Radioactive products can be transferred to human beings as food, in the form of fish and of vegetables. It can contaminate the ships and the hands of the fishermen. It can also contaminate the fishermen, who often eat some of their own catch. and, in turn, the fishermen can contaminate the people on shore when they return from their ships.

It should be noted, in reply to certain observations that have been made by apologists of these tests, that warnings to local fishing fleets to keep away from the test areas are useless and illusory, because few of these fleets are equipped to fish elsewhere except in their accustomed areas. They cannot live without fishing, and it has been estimated that the Japanese trade loss from one area in seven months, due to the Bikini test alone. was 240 million yen.

Contamination may reach human and other animals in an even more terrible way. if that be possible, because it will be more widespread and in every way more general. This is due to the delayed and indirect fall-out, which occurs in this way. When an H-bomb is exploded at high altitude, the radioactivity goes into the upper regions of the atmosphere or even into the stratosphere.

From there, by the winds and by the rotation of the earth, it spreads all over the globe, and gradually descends over a period of years, which may be as long as ten years. It would be invisible and would fall like invisible rain on sea and land alike, not only on the places where it rose but all over the earth, with its disease-generating menace. It is probably falling on Britain now, invisibly, and from this our own and future generations may suffer.

This invisible and devastating fall-out during all these years, day and night, will radioactivate the sea, the fish, the fishermen, fish eaters and sea bathers. It will fall also on land, on the farms, on the gardens, on the green grass, and the cattle which eat it and on the people who eat the vegetables and the cattle. The injuries will be a matter of degree, spread over years, depending on the amount, in each case, of contamination and the general circumstances.

I do not want to exaggerate, but to be factual and scientific, and I have taken the trouble to gather some scientific facts that arc relevant to the case that I am making. Nor do I want to be in any way alarmist. The Medical Research Council has said. If H-bomb tests continue at the present rate, the dose of radiation to the reproductive organs, which may cause damage to future generations, has been estimated to be of the order of 1 per cent. of that resulting from the natural level of radiation. The Atomic Scientists' Association adds this, when it says: Of greater import, however, is the damage which may result to the present generation, mainly from one radioactive substance—strontium 90. This substance enters into our food, chiefly in vegetables and dairy products, and it accumulates in the human body in the bones, where it remains for a long time. The Association continues: Depending on the assumptions made about the distribution of strontium in bone, we calculate that by the year 1970, the radiation dose to bone from all the tests carried out up to the autumn of 1956 will range from 9 per cent. to 45 per cent. of the dose received from all natural causes, including the radium which is normally present in the bone. I interrupt that statement here to say that about 150 atom and hydrogen bombs have been experimentally exploded by Great Britain, the United States and Russia during the last twelve years. These tests are becoming more numerous, bigger, and more dangerous. If this increase in number, size and danger continues, it is reasonable to assume that the doses of strontium 90 that mankind will receive will greatly increase also, unless some cleaner process is introduced. That is a problem for science, to try to cleanse the matter contained in the tests so that strontium 90 will not fall on the world as it is doing, following the tests which are being carried out today.

The Atomic Scientists' Association adds: It is known that radioactive substances concentrated in the bone may give rise to bone cancers and other damage, and that the irradiation of the bone marrow may result in leukaemia, a type of cancer of the blood. Several further relevant points emerge from this very valuable statement. I would mention only four briefly. First, it is not known what is the threshold dose below which cancer cannot be induced. Secondly, a small amount of strontium 90 may not do any harm, but, on the other hand, it may induce bone cancer in certain cases. Thirdly, in a large population a certain number of people would contract cancer as a result of even a small induction of strontium 90 in the bones. Fourthly, the whole subject is still inconclusive and is being investigated by scientists.

Towards the end of the statement occur these valuable and significant words: The calculations given in the appendix show that an H-bomb of the type tested at Bikini in 1954, if exploded high in the atmosphere, may eventually produce bone cancer in 1,000 people for every million tons of T.N.T. of equivalent explosive power …These thousand casualties would be spread all over the world and occur in the course of several decades. Professor Haldane, one of the world's greatest authorities on genetics, has put the death rate from this cause higher, when, in 1955, he estimated that the extreme minimum number of deaths that will result from this cause is 2,000 and the maximum 300,000. Strontium 90 would have entered their bodies with their food.

This is the point of my whole argument. I want to know how we are to be protected. What steps are being taken by the British Government, either alone or in conjunction with other Governments, to protect the people of the world on sea and land from this infection? It is clearly the duty of any Government who undertake these tests as a condition precedent to provide protective measures.

Not only has science made its contribution, but philosophers and religious leaders throughout the world have spoken in much the same terms as those which I am using here today. Although I am not a member of the Pope's community, I will quote the words of the Pope, who summed up the philosophy and the expressions of various leaders of theological and philosophic thought. He said as recently as 24th April: In place of the useless waste of scientific activity in this fearful and costly race to death, the wise men of all nations and of all faiths must feel the grave moral obligation to pursue the noble objective of controlling such energy in the service of man; and scientific, economic, industrial and political bodies must support, with all their power, the efforts to use this energy on a scale of grandeur appropriate to human needs. Dr. Albert Schweitzer has spoken recently in similar terms. I will quote one sentence from what he said: By the laws of genetics the damaging effects are cumulative and full results will appear only 100 to 200 years later. Professor Joliot-Curie, the world famous scientist, broadcast on 23rd April an appeal in this matter. He said: The fall-out of radio strontium caused by the explosions that have already taken place has not yet come to an end. It will go on for several years. Men and cattle eat the vegetation and their organisms will thus absorb the radio strontium. Milk will contain radio strontium. If the experiments are not stopped, radio strontium will certainly reach a sufficient strength in men, and above all in young growing, children to provoke numerous cancers of the bone and leukemias. These problems are planetary in scope and very urgent. They transcend in magnitude and importance and urgency any problem which has ever confronted mankind. They can be solved only by international agreement. To act unilaterally would leave the nations who so acted a prey to others. But Britain can give an urgent lead towards international agreement. That would be the way of greatness. What is the British policy? I want to know what Britain is doing to provide protection for the British people and for British food against this contamination.

4.17 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber)

The hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) has, I am quite sure, spoken with deep sincerity. He has raised a most important matter which is vital to the whole human race. I only wish that I had sufficient time in which to do justice to it and to answer a few of the questions which he has put to me. But even had I the time, the hon. and learned Member will realise that many of the questions which he has asked are entirely beyond my scope to answer. Some of them come directly under the responsibility of the Prime Minister. Therefore, the hon. and learned Member will not expect from me a full answer to many of the fundamental questions which he has asked. Nevertheless, in the time at my disposal I will try to deal with one or two of the points which he has raised.

In order to get the matter in its true perspective, I will quote from the speech of the Prime Minister on 1st April. I wish to do so because although the hon. and learned Gentleman said—and I quite accept his word—that he did not wish to be alarmist, the way in which he has built up a story and the quotations which he has given serve to give a picture which is alarming and despondent in the extreme. I think it important to get this matter in its proper perspective and so, if I may, I will quote from the Prime Minister's speech. My right hon. Friend said: Estimates have been made of the addition to the external radiation to which the human race will be subjected if test explosions go on at the same rate as in the past few years. The estimate is that in the course of time—and a long time—the external radiation from fall-out will build up to an exposure per generation of not more than one-hundredth part of what man would receive in the same period from natural sources alone.…The position, therefore, is that the contribution to the external radiation hazard from bomb tests is very small, almost negligible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st April, 1957Vol. 568, c. 51–53.] At a later stage my right hon. Friend went on to deal with the question of internal radiation, to which the hon. and learned Member devoted much of his speech, and I will quote my right hon. Friend again: Apart from the external radiation—and this is much more serious—to which bomb tests make a very small contribution, there is the internal radiation due to the absorption into the body from food or drink of substances such as strontium 90 which are part of the fall-out. I do not want to minimise this, which must be closely watched. But it is fair to say that the average levels of strontium 90 at present measured in human bone in the United Kingdom are less than one unit and that is one hundred times less than what, in the view of the Medical Research Council, is the maximum allowable concentration in bodies of individuals of the population."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st April, 1957Vol. 568. c. 51–53.] Those words were carefully weighed by my right hon. Friend and can be measured against some of the remarks which the hon. and learned Gentleman has just been making.

In the few minutes I have available I turn to questions which affect my own Department more closely, the effects of radiation on growing crops, animals and fish.

The sponsoring and the co-ordination of research into non-medical biological hazards caused by radioactive substances, whether arising from fall-out or any other cause, are conducted by a committee under the chairmanship of Lord Rothschild, the distinguished President of the Agricultural Research Council. The Committee has been set up jointly by the A.R.C., the M.R.C., and the Development Commission, and its members include experts from the Atomic Energy Authority, the Medical Research Council, the Development Commission and my own Department. It is to co-operate with this Committee and with the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell that we are pursuing our inquiries.

I will deal. first, with fish, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman particularly referred—fish landed at ports in the United Kingdom. This fish comes from the seas around the British Coast and the northern Atlantic waters. Our fishermen do not fish the Pacific, where the forthcoming nuclear tests are to be held.

Any danger from hydrogen bomb or other atomic tests taking place in areas widely distant from the ground fished by British fishermen results from the gradual fall-out of radioactive particles from the upper atmosphere. At present, the danger of contamination of that kind is negligible. The radioactive particles carried to the upper atmosphere by explosions in the Pacific and other distant areas drift to all parts of the world before being deposited very gradually over a period of years on the earth's surface. The hon. and learned Gentleman himself pointed that out.

During that gradual process the radioactive particles lose much of their potency and after reaching the sea they are further dispersed and absorbed within the vast areas of the ocean. Nevertheless, a risk remains that if there were a much increased concentration of radioactive dust in the upper air there might be some danger even to the grounds fished by British fishermen far from the areas in which the tests took place. At the present level of concentration I am advised that we are far removed from any such danger. The dispersal of radioactive particles in the upper air and in the ocean is so great that the amount of activity remaining for absorption by the fish stocks fished by our industry is quite insignificant.

There is, of course, a greater danger to fish stocks within the immediate area of experiments with ground burst or underwater burst nuclear explosions. The Prime Minister has already explained in his Answer to a Question on 17th April that even with tests of this kind—and the series now projected will consist of high level explosions—there is at present no danger of eels or migratory fish becoming contaminated, and returning to our waters, carrying a risk to the public.

There are other points about fish with which I would like to deal, but I have not the time to do so, and I must leave the subject of fish now if I am to deal with some of the other questions which the hon. and learned Gentleman asked. I now turn to the question of growing crops, where our problem is to determine the uptake of radiostrontium from various soils by plants of importance to agriculture and by animals feeding on those plants. I think that that is what the hon. and learned Gentleman had very much in mind.

In 1956, the Agricultural Research Council embarked upon a field trial at the Compton Research Station on the uptake of radiostrontium from the soil by barley, grass and sugar beet. The actual form of radiostrontium used for those experiments was strontium 89 which has, as I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware, a half-life of 54 days compared with strontium 90, which has a half-life of twenty-eight years. The purpose of that was to reduce the hazard to all concerned, and to ensure that the land will not be put out of use permanently for agricultural purposes; the effects are identical.

That experiment, and others to which I shall refer later, have an importance altogether apart from the hazards from nuclear explosions in time of peace. They will give fundamental knowledge for the guidance of farming practice in the event of agricultural land becoming contaminated with fall-out from nuclear attack, if we should ever be subjected to such a disastrous experience, or from an accident to an atomic power station. The chance of such an accident is very remote but, nevertheless, we must be prepared.

The House will not expect me to go into great detail about the experiments, which have been concerned with the effects of liming the soils of different cultivations such as deep and shallow ploughing and rotavating, and with the different effects on ploughed and fallow land. The results of the Compton trial have not yet been published, but I can say that the uptake of radio strontium by the plants grown was less than I per cent. of the amount put down. That is very significant. The soil at the Compton Station is chalk downland, and we thought it desirable to check the results in other soils. We decided this year that my Department should collaborate with the Agricultural Research Council by extending the trials to various of our experimental husbandry farms during the 1957 season. We have, therefore, chosen five different types of soil, and are extending this trial very considerably at a number of our stations in the present season.

As I speak, this programme has been completed to the sowing stage on nearly all sites. Analyses of the crop samples and soil samples will be taken at prescribed intervals during the growing season. and a report on the result will, we hope, be available before the end of the year. This is a very interesting subject, and one on which we are taking some concrete action.

Apart from the work being done on the experimental farms and fundamental research by the Agricultural Research Council on the uptake of radioactive substances by plants and farm animals, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, in co-operation with my Department, has for some years past been carrying out a considerable number of investigations. These are designed to show the uptake of strontium 90, due to fall-out from nuclear explosions, in the soil, vegetation, bones and milk. They are long-term investigations intended to elucidate what happens to strontium 90 in the soil and in its movement through plants, animal tissue and milk. It is hoped, for example, to discover the relative importance of the uptake of strontium by plants from the soil and through their foliage.

Nine sampling sites were chosen, two of them in Suffolk. three in Wales, and one each in Cambridge, Norfolk, Devon and Durham. The sampling is done by the regional officers of my Department and samples are taken of soil, grass and animal bones—sheep bones in particular. Apart from those investigations, large quantitites of milk have been taken for analysis from areas as far apart as Somerset and Northern Ireland. The results are being compared with the results of similar work in the United States, and, in addition, we have organised a supply of samples of soil and grass and bones from a large number of Commonwealth countries.

I have tried, as quickly as I can, to touch on some of the things that we are doing, in order to show that we are very much alive to the problem. I hope that I have said enough to show that we take a serious view of the effect of radioactivity on agricultural products, farm animals, and fish, and that in co-operation with Lord Rothschild's Committee we are pursuing our investigations. vigorously. But I should be very wrong if I were to leave the House with the impression that we are pursuing these investigations because there is any immediate or foreseeable danger either to farm animals or human beings within the fields for which we are responsible.

While we realise the seriousness of the matter, I would add that it is important not to over-estimate it, and it would be very wrong to raise scares unnecessarily. It is difficult to get an exact balance, but I would say that we are vitally concerned with this matter. I am very glad that the hon. and learned Member raised it. and I hope that some of the points that I have made will show that the Government are fully alive to the seriousness of the situation.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Four o'clock.