§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list all the monitoring programmes for radioactivity his Ministry has undertaken or commissioned since May 1986, the type of substances tested, if animals were tested and whether they were alive or dead, and where any results have been published.
§ Mr. Donald ThompsonMy Department maintains routine monitoring programmes in both the aquatic and terrestrial environments and additional emergency monitoring has been ongoing in both these areas since the Chernobyl accident. A comprehensive range of food, agricultural and aquatic materials is monitored in these570W programmes. Animal testing is based on dead samples with the exception of the programme of live monitoring of sheep in the restricted areas. Data have been published in (i) radionuclide levels in food, animals and agricultural products, (ii) aquatic environment monitoring report numbers 15 and 18. These reports together with additional tabulated aquatic data and live monitoring results for sheep have been placed in the Library of the House.