§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his oral answer to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) of 11 January,Official Report, column 7, if he will place in the Library the papers his Department submitted to the joint Department of the Environment—Ministry of Agriculture assessment of THORP for the consultation exercise; and if he will set out 666W the basis of his statement that conversion of nuclear material to military purpose can be achieved only with extreme difficulty.
§ Mr. AitkenMy Department participated in the preparation of the statement of Government policy on reprocessing and the operation of the thermal oxide reprocessing plant at Sellafield, which was made public on 4 August 1993. No submissions have been made since then by my Department in respect of the consultation or decision on the new Sellafield discharge authorisation. A copy of the statement of Government policy has been placed in the Library of the House.
I have nothing to add to the position set out in paragraph 51 of that statement, on the usefulness of plutonium from THORP for weapons purposes.