§ Mr. Maplesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when the committee on the medical aspects of radiation in the environment (COMARE) will complete its report on new information relating to discharges from Sellafield that has become available since publication of Sir Douglas Black's report.
§ Mr. HayhoeCOMARE has now completed its report and it is being published today. I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Library and the Vote Office.
The committee concludes that it is impossible to exclude environmental radiation or indeed any other factor as a contributory cause of the cases of leukaemia observed at Seascale although they stress that there is no firm evidence for the existence of any causal relationship between environmental radiation and these leukaemias.
Although the committee expresses reservations about the adequacy and completeness of the available data and also about the conventional framework for estimating doses and risks, it concludes that the substance and essential conclusions of the Black advisory group report remain unchanged.
The Government are giving full and careful consideration to the report and will take any necessary action.