§ Mr. Campbell-Savoursasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will state the position of Her Majesty's Government to be taken at the meeting of the Paris Commission.
§ Mr. William WaldegraveA meeting of the Paris convention on the prevention of marine pollution from land-based sources was held in Oslo last week. The United Kingdom fully supported a recommendation which was put forward by the Nordic countries and adopted by the Commission. This called for contracting parties to take account of the best available technology at existing nuclear reprocessing plants and whenever new reprocessing plants are constructed, in order to minimise radioactive discharges to the marine environment. The recommendation was supported by all the contracting parties, except France, which reserved its position. Her Majesty's Government are already committed to ensuring that the environmental impact of Sellafield meets the highest standards that are reasonably achievable, and they will comply with the recommendation of the Paris Commission in regulating discharges both from Sellafield and from the UKAEA reprocessing plant at Dounreay, as well as taking494W into account advice from the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee. In this context I welcome the recent statement by the chairman of BNFL that the company is carrying out a top priority study into how it can reduce its discharges from Sellafield to as near zero as possible. As required by the Paris Commission, the Government will be submitting a first report to the Commission by 31 December 1984 on the measures planned, the proposed timetable, the measures applied and the results achieved.