§ Mr. Dewarasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will make a statement about the discovery of restricted documents referring to a defence project in Buckburn, Aberdeenshire, following a fire at a local paper mill; and what steps he proposes to take to improve the procedure for the destruction of restricted and classified material to ensure there can be no repetition of such incidents.
§ Mr. Powellasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will inform the 161W House of the outcome of his inquiries into the circumstances in which classified waste from his Department was unsupervised while awaiting pulping at Aberdeen and thus came to be scattered.
§ Mr. HealeyA small number of pages of a document marked "restricted" were found by members of the public at Buck-burn, Aberdeenshire, and handed over to the police. The circumstances under which these papers were found are being investigated, and I will consider making a further statement when the investigations are completed.
The existing methods for the disposal of classified waste are already under review, and account will be taken of the outcome of the current investigations.