Dr. John CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what advice he has received from the National Radiological Protection Board on the annual collective dose of radiation worldwide from(a) background radiation, fallout and non-nuclear industry sources, (b) medical exposure and (c) the operation of the thermal oxide reprocessing plant; and if he will make a statement;
(2) what advice he has received from the National Radiological Protection Board on the annual collective dose of radiation to the whole United Kingdom population from all sources now; by what amount that dose would increase if THORP was operating; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. YeoDetails of the annual collective doses of radiation from all sources to the United Kingdom population are published in the National Radiation Protection Board's (NRPB) "Radiation Exposure of the UK Population—1993 Review". Information on the collective doses to the world's population from all sources is published in "Sources, Effects and Risks of Ionising Radiation UNSCEAR 1988 Report to the General Assembly, United Nations". At the request of the Chief Medical Officer's Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), NRPB has published estimates of the collective doses arising from proposed Sellafield discharges. These calculations indicate that the operation of THORP would increase the annual collective dose to the United Kingdom population by less than 0.003 per cent. and the world's population by less than 0.0006 per cent. I am arranging for copies of these publications to be placed in the House Library.