§ Mr. Simon Hughesasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what consultations he has had recently with the radioactive waste management advisory committee.
§ Mr. Patrick JenkinMy Department has regular and useful consultations with the radioactive waste management advisory committee, which continues to be the major source of independent and objective advice to the Government in this controversial and important field. The Under-Secretary of State will attend part of tomorrow's meeting of the committee.
My colleagues and I are grateful to Sir Denys Wilkinson FRS, vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, for his distinguished and widely appreciated contribution as chairman of the committee since it was set up in 1978. It was with regret that I accepted Sir Denys's wish to give up the chairmanship at a suitable opportunity, in order to devote more time to his other commitments.
I am today appointing Professor Paul T. Matthews CBE, FRS, who has expressed to my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales and myself his willingness to serve, as chairman of the committee for a term of three and a half years beginning in January. Professor Matthews is a distinguished physicist who recently retired as vice-chancellor of the University of Bath and is currently working in the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics at Cambridge