To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if' he will make a statement on the transport of nuclear weapons.

Safety and security are of paramount importance in our nuclear weapons transport methods and procedures. We do not move any nuclear weapons by road, and would not do so, unless it was safe to do so.

Why are such weapons transported at all? Have the Government not in effect acknowledged the findings of the Drell panel report on the safety of nuclear weapons by setting up their own review? Will the Minister assure us that he will stop the transportation of any nuclear weapons until the Drell panel findings are issued?

Certainly not. The hon. Lady, like many Opposition Members, probably does not realise that her party's policy on nuclear weapons has changed. Nuclear weapons must be kept up to date, and they must be serviced at intervals; if that is not done, they become ineffective. If there is a policy of having nuclear weapons, those weapons must be serviced at intervals to keep them running properly.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there have been no leakages of radioactive material in any of the convoys travelling to and from the establishment at Burghfield in my Constituency?

I can certainly confirm that. As I said earlier, the safety of the carriage of radioactive material is paramount. Although there have been mechanical breakdowns, they have merely affected the vehicles carrying the material. There has never been any question of nuclear radiation seeping out.

I welcome the establishment of the Ministry of Defence working party under Professor Oxburgh in the light of the Drell report, even though the Government had to be dragged a little to achieve that. On the transport of nuclear weapons, which is covered in the Drell report and should therefore be part of the Oxburgh report, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to give local authorities notice when nuclear weapons are to be transported through their localities?

When there is any question of those materials being transported, we deal with the local police. I believe that that is quite adequate. The local police are responsible for the safety of their areas. One problem is that some of the local authorities with which we have to deal are extremely left wing and anti-nuclear. They leak information about convoys to members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, resulting in convoys being disrupted and people's lives being put in danger.