§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library copies of the 800 documents on Gulf war illness to which reference is made at paragraph 1.B.17 of his Department's organophosphate pesticide investigation team report D/OPPIT/3 of 6 December. [9593]
§ Mr. SoamesThe documents referred to in paragraph 1.B.17 of the organophosphate pesticide investigation team's report are a miscellaneous collection of papers related to the issue of illness of personnel who served in the Gulf war contained in files located in one particular area of my Department. From the records of the team, the collection comprises internal minutes, notes, briefs and submissions; external letters and faxes; draft PQ material,Hansard extracts and a parliamentary petition; press releases, clippings and media transcripts; and published research papers and reports. The team's report does not suggest that this material in any way represents a coherent or comprehensive picture of my Department's consideration of this issue. The team made this reference simply to indicate the scale of the task which faced them in carrying out their work against very tight deadlines.
By its nature a good deal of the material is already in the public domain. The remainder would need to be checked document by document against the requirements of the "Code of Practice on Access to Government Information", though most if not all of it is likely to be covered by the internal discussion and advice exemption in the code. Checking of the material to provide the information requested could be done only at disproportionate cost.