§ Lord Jenkins of Putneyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the nuclear attack pattern drawn up by the Home Office and based on 179 bombs with a total yield of 193 megatons was used for casualty assessment purposes, and if so when it was last used for that purpose and whether the casualty estimates arising from that assessment were published and if not whether they will now publish them.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton)It was not drawn up to provide casualty estimates for policy or planning purposes. I would refer the noble Lord to the reply I gave to his Question on 12th May [Official Report, 12/5/83; col. 696.]. The attack pattern was referred to in a paper delivered to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1981 by the then Deputy Director of the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch to illustrate a method of predicting damage and casualty effects. The paper was reproduced in The Nuclear Arms Race: Control or Catrastrophe, C.F. Barnaby and G. P. Thomas (Eds), Frances Pinter (1982) pp. 135–163.