Depleted Uranium Ammunition (Hansard, 8 July 1993)

§ Mr. Llew Smith
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), of 1 July,Official Report, column 632, when he was informed of the concerns expressed by the three military personnel regarding fears of inhalation of depleted uranium dust.

§ Mr. Hanley
The exact date on which these personnel first sought medical advice is not recorded in their medical records, but it is understood to have been after their return to the United Kingdom from the Gulf on 21 January 1991. The monitoring showed no detectable depleted uranium contamination.

§ Mr. Llew Smith
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) of 1 July,Official Report, column 632, at which hospital or medical centre was the monitoring to which he refers conducted.

§ Mr. Hanley
The monitoring was carried out by the Defence Radiological Protection Service at the Institute of Naval Medicine, Gosport, on 8 February 1991.

§ Mr. Foulkes
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many of the depleted uranium shells fired at the Ministry of Defence range at Kirkcudbright between 1982 and June 1993 were subsequently recovered.

§ Mr. Aitken
Two complete rounds and one fragment have been recovered.

§ Mr. Foulkes
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department's memorandum on anti-armoured ammunition with depleted uranium penetrators placed in the Library of the House in March 1979 is still applicable.

§ Mr. Aitken
Clearly the strategic environment has changed radically since the publication of the memoran-dum, but the statements of the underlying principles of the programme and the means by which it is carried out remain valid.