§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the Weapon Engineering Division at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston, was set up; what is the purpose of this division; how many series of technical papers or reports are currently being produced by this division; and what are the names of each series. [33859]
§ Mr. SpellarThe "Weapon" Engineering Division at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which is more properly known as the Warhead Engineering Division, was set up in 1954. The Division is now part of the Systems Engineering area. Its purpose is to undertake444W scientific warhead design through to an engineered system. This work enables AWE to underwrite the performance and safety of the warhead.
One untitled series of reports is currently being issued. There are also a number of general engineering technology studies.
§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 29 January 1998,Official Report, column 345, on the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston, how many unclassified papers were produced in each of the two series of reports produced by the chemical technology division of the Atomic Weapons Establishment between 1968 and 1991. [33855]
§ Mr. SpellarNot all of the information sought is available. The Technical Memoranda series contains some 95 unclassified reports. The other series contained a large number of informal reports and documents and there was no requirement to record how many of these were unclassified. To obtain the information now, a very large number of files not in current use would have to be retrieved and examined and this could be done only at disproportionate cost.