HC Deb 30 April 2002 vol 384 c664W
Mr. Carmichael

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if radioactive technetium is stored in the Sellafield B30 nuclear waste storage facility. [51963]

Margaret Beckett

The B30 facility at Sellafield was commissioned in the 1960s for interim storage of spent Magnox fuel in water-filled concrete ponds and the subsequent removal of cladding from the fuel prior to it being reprocessed. The facility no longer undertakes these operations and is now undergoing post-operational clean out. However, several hundred tonnes of spent fuel remain in the B30 storage ponds. The spent fuel contains a range of fission products including technetium-99.

Llew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received on the Sellafield MOX plant since the decision to endorse the go-ahead for the Sellafield MOX plant. [15574]

Margaret Beckett

Since the decision on 3 October that MOX manufacture was "justified", my Department has received approximately 70 oral or written representations from hon. Members or others in the UK, and from Governments or others abroad, seeking information or expressing concerns about the implications of the decision. This compares with around 7,000 responses to our final consultation on MOX held in July-August 2001.