§ Mr. CorbynTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish the information held by his Department on the incidence of cancers amongst people living in areas surrounding waste incinerators; and what recommendation his Department has made on emissions from incineration. [90353]
§ Ms JowellThe study of cancer incidence near municipal solid waste incinerators, which was funded by this and five other Government Departments, was published in the British Journal of Cancer in 1996 (Elliott P., Shaddick G., Kleinschmidt I., Jolley D., Walls P., Beresford J. and Grundy C. (1996). Cancer incidence near municipal solid waste incinerators in Great Britain. British Journal of Cancer, volume 73, pp 702–710). This study found no evidence of an excess incidence of most of the cancer types studied among populations living near incinerators, although an excess incidence of liver cancer was reported. Because of particular problems with the accurate diagnosis of liver cancer, the Department has funded a further study to review the diagnosis of the liver cancer cases found in this study. The results of this study will be published in due course.
The Department does not make specific recommendations on emissions from incineration. However, the Department works closely with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, which has lead policy responsibility for industrial emissions controls, and also with the Environment Agency, which has regulatory responsibility for Integrated Pollution Control.