CHRISTMAS ISLAND TEST VETERANS

Early day motion 645, tabled 14 January 2002 by Michael Weir (Scottish National Party). Signed by 61 members.

That this House welcomes last month's ruling by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal that Tom Duggan, a nuclear test veteran who served in the armed forces during the UK's first A bomb programme on Christmas Island in 1958, contracted Lymphatic Cancer following exposure to radiation; notes that the tribunal's decision could finally prove to be the decisive case which overturns decades of claims by successive UK governments that the Christmas Island explosions could not have harmed UK servicemen; further notes the Ministry of Defence's refusal to grant funding to a test pioneered at Dundee University which would determine the effects of radiation on servicemen; and calls upon the Government to reconsider its position and grant the ú300,000 necessary to carry out these tests.

Signatures by party: Labour 38, Liberal Democrat 12, Scottish National Party 5, Labour/Co-operative 3, Plaid Cymru 2, UUP 1.