Written question asked by Lord Maude of Horsham (Conservative) on Thursday, 13 July 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 17 July 2006. It was answered by Adam Ingram (Labour) on Wednesday, 8 November 2006 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

National Radiological Protection Board

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the name, rank and service number were of each serviceman excluded from the study by the National Radiological Protection Board published in the 1993 British Medical Journal 307 1530-5.

Answer: The names, rank and serial number of Service personnel participating in the study, is considered to be personal data within the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the disclosure without consent of the information requested would contravene the data protection principles and breach undertakings of confidentiality given to participants at the time. To obtain agreement to release this information would incur disproportionate costs. However, broad descriptions of these servicemen, who were excluded from the main study since they had left the test sites before the first detonation and were therefore considered unlikely to have had any more potential for radiation exposure than the general public, have been published within both the 1993 and 2003 National Radiological Protection Board reports.

Secondary information