§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the experts responsible for assessing the details of tenders submitted by the consortiums applying for the contract to manage AWE Aldermaston. [118513]
§ Mr. Spellar[holding answer 10 April 2000]: The tenders were assessed by Ministry of Defence staff from the Nuclear Weapons area of the Defence Procurement Agency, the Director Nuclear Policy and the Assistant Chief Scientific Adviser (Nuclear) as well as external advisers on legal and commercial matters. Officials from the independent regulators, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) and the Environment Agency (EA), were also kept fully informed and consulted as necessary throughout the process. I am withholding the names under Exemption 2 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information on the grounds that, given their involvement in high security work, they are potentially vulnerable to the attentions of terrorists, foreign agencies and anti-nuclear groups.