Nuclear Test Veterans: NRPB Report (Hansard, 11 October 1993)

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Viscount Cranborne)
My Lords, a report on cancer and mortality among nuclear test veterans was published in 1988 by the National Radiological Protection Board. The timing of the planned follow-up report is a matter for the NRPB as an independent body. I understand that publication is now expected early next year.

§ Lord Ashley of Stoke
My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that Ministers in another place said that the second report would be published in 1991? They later said that it would be published in 1992 and then they said that it would be published in 1993. As we approach 1994 we are still awaiting that vital evidence on nuclear test veterans. Will the Minister recognise that for them time is running out? A nuclear test veteran who expressed his anxiety to me in regard to the delay told me that he is now dying and that his closest colleague died recently. Why cannot we get a move on?

Viscount Cranborne
My Lords, I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Lord on the remarkable results of his recent operation. The noble Lord was quite formidable enough when he had only four of his senses. Now that he has all five, I fear that the Government Front Bench had better look out even more. I have said to the noble Lord and to other noble Lords 4 on many previous occasions that the matter is entirely one for the NRPB, which is an independent body over which the Government have absolutely no control. We expect this to go for peer review this autumn, and peer review itself, as the noble Lord knows, takes time.

§ Lord Ennals
My Lords, although the Minister says that it is an entirely independent body, the issue is surely one in which the Government are concerned. There must have been correspondence and an exchange of views with the board. Can he say why there have been these long, repeated delays in the publication of a report affecting a group of people who, as my noble friend has said, are getting older and have greatly suffered?

Viscount Cranborne
My Lords, underlying the questions from both noble Lords is the assumption that the nuclear tests conducted in the Pacific all those years ago were responsible for an increased incidence of cancer. I have tried in the past to answer noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on that matter and I shall not go over that ground again. All I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, is that he would not like an independent body, whose independence I am sure he values, to be influenced in any way by Her Majesty's Government. We value that independence as much as anybody else. It is not for us to interfere in that body's deliberations, much as we would like those deliberations to be brought to as rapid a conclusion as possible.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, does the noble Viscount accept that his replies, apart from his congratulations to my noble friend in which I join—I warn my noble friends that we must be careful of what we say about my noble friend behind his back—have been profoundly unsatisfactory? The Government may have no influence over an independent conclusion but they are surely able to ask the board to get on with it and to submit its report as soon as possible. To have this delay when people are dying or are in the process of dying is profoundly unsatisfactory to us all and I hope to your Lordships' House.

Viscount Cranborne
My Lords, if I may say so, the noble Lord makes exactly the same error as his two colleagues. I reject utterly his imputation that my replies are unsatisfactory. All the evidence so far suggests that up to a third of the population as a whole will be affected by cancer whether they went to Christmas Island or not. Just because someone is, sadly—and we all regret this—dying from cancer does not necessarily mean that the nuclear tests should be blamed.

§ Lord Ennals
My Lords, is not the Minister by what he has just said interfering with the independence of the board? How can he have reached that conclusion? Surely it is for the board to do so.

Viscount Cranborne
Indeed, my Lords, and I have said "all the evidence so far". In the previous report in 1988 that is the conclusion which the NRPB reached. We shall see what its new report says by way of conclusion when it is published.

§ Lord Ashley of Stoke
My Lords, the noble Viscount implies with confidence that according to 5 present evidence there is no greater incidence of cancer among nuclear test veterans. But if he is so confident can he explain to the House how it happens that the Department of Social Security pays nuclear test veterans for some cancers but the Ministry of Defence does not? How does he account for the fact that the first report on nuclear test veterans stated that the incidence of two cancers is greater in nuclear test veterans, thereby torpedoing his whole case? How does he account for the fact that the United States Defense Department pays for 20 cancers while our Ministry of Defence pays for none?

Viscount Cranborne
My Lords, if I were to answer all those questions in detail I suggest that I would bore the House even more than I do already. I refer the noble Lord to col. 1204 of the Official Report of 9th June 1992, where all these points were addressed. The test veterans themselves, as the noble Lord well knows, were subjected to comparison with a control group. The control group showed no overall increase in the rate of cancer as compared to the Christmas Island veterans. That is the evidence so far. If the NRPB changes the evidence, we would be obliged to look at it again. I am certainly willingly give that undertaking. I can only repeat that there is absolutely no evidence so far.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, does the noble Viscount recognise that we are quite prepared to be bored by him if he wishes to answer properly questions put by my noble friend? Will he, since he does not wish to do so, be kind enough to write to my noble friend with the answers and perhaps copy them to me? Will he take it from me that the issue will not go away?

Viscount Cranborne
My Lords, I am well aware that it is well within the rights and indeed obligations of Members of the House to raise matters of concern. My noble friends on the Government Front Bench and I have given full answers to all these points. We have only half an hour to answer questions. I am merely repeating an answer that I have given to the noble Lord and other noble Lords before. I do not feel that it is incumbent on me to get in the way of other questioners to give those answers, which are complicated, as fully as the noble Lord demands. I would merely be repeating in exactly the same terms what I had said on previous occasions.