The Ministry of Defence has come under fierce fire for removing radiation warning signs from the nuclear convoys that regularly trundle Scotland’s roads. The well-known trefoil symbol indicating hazardous radioactivity is no longer used on lorries transporting plutonium or highly enriched uranium for bombs. According to the MoD, this is so it can maintain its policy “to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons.” In the past vehicles carrying “special nuclear materials” such as plutonium and uranium displayed the warning signs, though those carrying nuclear weapons did not. But following a decision to use the same vehicles for both kinds of shipments, the MoD dispensed with all radiation symbols. The change was only revealed in a recent parliamentary answer from the defence minister Penny Mordaunt to the SNP MP for Midlothian, Owen Thompson. “This beggars belief,” he told the Sunday Herald. Bill Butler, a Glasgow Labour councillor and convener of the nuclear-free local authorities in Scotland, described the MoD’s decision as “ridiculous”. He pointed out that local councils weren’t informed about convoy movements. “Now their staff, and other emergency service staff, may be putting themselves at risk or even harm by being unaware of the serious radioactive content of a convoy in the event of a serious accident,” he said. “And all for a change in defence doctrine which will not acknowledge there are nuclear weapons being transported through Scotland, when quite obviously they are.”
Sunday Herald 21st Feb 2016 read more »