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Ministry of Defence

Answer

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what date his Department discovered that archive files held in the basement of the old War Office building were contaminated with asbestos; on what date the committee responsible first met to discuss this; and if he will make a statement on the time which elapsed between the two events. [194546] Mr. Caplin: [holding answer 1 November 2004]: The presence of asbestos in the basement area of the Old War Office Building was confirmed in May 2003. A decision was immediately made to safeguard the information contained on these files and during the period June to December 2003 the files were progressively packed to ensure they could be safely handled. At the same time it was possible to implement the decontamination of the affected area. Some 3,000 crates of affected files were transferred to a new location during May 2004. This work fell within the Department's Main Building Redevelopment project. During this period, the Departmental Records Officer's (DRO's) staff were investigating options for the future handling of the potentially contaminated material. In August 2004, the DRO decided that this work should be overseen by a formal Project Board, including a member from The National Archives. This Board first met on 14 September 2004.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

194546; 426 c214W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Asbestos Archives Contamination Ministry of Defence Departmental records

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk