Depleted Uranium Contamination (Hansard, 2 March 1998)

§ Lord Gilbert

The text of the letter referred to is set out below:

"In my letter of 2 February I undertook to write separately to you on the subject of the 1991 UK Atomic Energy Authority, UKAEA, paper on Depleted Uranium contamination, a matter which you raised shortly before Christmas in one of your Questions for Written Answer.

144WA

Both the UKAEA and the Ministry of Defence are aware only of a paper written in April 1991 entitled "Kuwait—Depleted Uranium Contamination". Having sought UKAEA's approval, I attach a copy of the report, which has been declassified, and am placing copies in the Library of the House. You should be aware that the report was not commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, but was produced for Royal Ordnance plc on a commercial basis.

When I first read the report, I was startled to see the figures quoted in the text on the apparent extent of the potential contamination. Further investigation, however, has uncovered that a number of assumptions made in the paper are very far from realistic. Indeed, the paper itself makes clear that it is not a rigorous scientific analysis of the actual situation, but a theoretical appraisal of the possible worst-case effects of Depleted Uranium ammunition in Kuwait.

In particular, the paper assumes that a large number of Depleted Uranium rounds were fired in Kuwait, that all the Depleted Uranium fired was converted into respirable dust, and that all of this dust was inhaled by a very large number of people. Although uranium is a pyrophoric material, a Depleted Uranium shell needs to hit an extremely hard target to cause the burning which produces various oxides in the form of dust. In practice, our tests show that this occurs only when the shell hits extremely hard armour, as found on only the most modern main battle tanks. Such burning does not occur if the shell hits other types of armoured vehicles, or if it misses its target and is fired into the ground.

The US estimate that they fired approximately 4,000 tank rounds in combat, not all of which would have hit a target hard enough to cause the Depleted Uranium core to burn. Our assessment, based on the large number of trials carried out in the UK and US, is that only about 20 per cent. of the Depleted Uranium in a shell that has hit such a target is converted into respirable dust. Since the rounds were fired in the desert, many kilometres from the nearest village, it is highly unlikely that the local population would have been exposed to any significant amount of respirable oxide. You may wish to know that, on the basis on which the calculations in the AEA paper rely, 500,000 people would die in Britain if we were to inhale all the natural uranium that exists in 20 square kilometres of average British soil, to the depth of 1 metre.

The paper goes on to refer to a radioactive dose of 1 milli-Sievert per year as a dose which "could easily be exceeded", and that "exceeding [this] dose puts the public at risk". In fact, in the UK, the average member of the public receives about twice this dose during every year of their life from natural background radiation. This is in the ordinary course of life, rather than in the event of such unrealistic, hypothetical scenarios as those used in the paper.

The only situation in which exposure to respirable Depleted Uranium oxide is a real hazard is when someone is working inside a tank which has recently been destroyed with Depleted Uranium ammunition. In this situation, a mask should be worn at all times. As you will be aware from the RAOC Technical 145WA Ammunition Bulletin No. 21/2024, which I enclosed in my letter of 2 February and which is also available in the Library of the House, our standing instructions are that service respirators should be worn at all times during clearance of ordnance by service personnel in such circumstances for this very reason.

I hope this is helpful. I assume that, like me, you will wish the text of this letter to appear in the Official Report. I understand that the only way in which this can happen is in response to a Question for Written Answer. If you would like to table a Question to this effect, I will be glad to oblige."

Letter to J. Y. Sanders, Royal Ordnance, from P. G. E. Bartholomew, Business Development Manager, Defence, AEA Industrial Technology, dated 30 April 1991.

"When we spoke on the telephone, I promised to produce a threat paper on the contamination of Kuwait with depleted uranium used by the US and UK forces in the recent war. I attach a short paper which covers the threat, identifies the need to size the problem and outlines the action we believe is necessary for health safety.

The whole subject of contamination of Kuwait is emotive and thus must be dealt with in a sensitive manner. It is necessary to inform the Kuwait Government of the problem in a useful way and this Mr. Alastair Parker, Regional Marketing Directorate 1, Defence Export Services has suggested is probably best done in conjunction with the UK Ambassador to Kuwait. He said that a threat paper should be sent by him to the UK Ambassador. He also said that he believed that the work of dealing with the depleted uranium might best be let to AEA Technology as an extension to the Royal Ordnance contract.

We believe that this may be the most straightforward method and AEA Technology therefore request that RO consider extending their contract with the Kuwait government to include the survey and clean up of depleted uranium by AEA Technology as their subcontractor.

If you agree to our proposal, may I suggest that we meet with Alastair Parker to whom I am copying this letter, in order to decide on the way ahead."

Paper presented by AEA Technology: