§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to her answer of 25 February,Official Report, column 492, if she will set out the international conventions covering land-based radioactive waste discharges and those to which the United Kingdom is party.
§ Mr. AtkinsI have been asked to reply. The Government do not have a list of all the international conventions to which other states may be parties that cover land-based discharges of radioactive wastes. The following are the treaties and conventions relevant to the interests of the United Kingdom in European waters
the Eurotom treaty, 1957, to which the United Kingdom is now a party as a member state of the European Community;the—Paris—convention for the protection of marine pollution from land-based sources, 1974, to which the United Kingdom has been a contracting party since its inception; this will eventually be replaced by the convention for the protection of the marine environment of the north-east Atlantic 1992, which the United Kingdom has signed but has yet to ratify;the—Helsinki—convention on the protection of the marine environment of the Baltic sea area, 1974, to be replaced in due course by the—Helsinki—convention on the protection of the Baltic sea area, 1992, and the—Barcelona—convention for the protection of the Mediterranean sea against pollution, 1976, in both of which the United Kingdom has interests as a member state of the European Community, since the European Community is, or is in the process of becoming, a contracting party to those conventions.