Brown And Root And Safety At Aldermaston

EDM number 1741 in 1992-93, proposed by Frank Cook on 31/03/1993.

That this House notes that Brown and Root hold a 31 per cent. share in Hunting-BRAE, the consortium that from 1st April assumes responsibility for running the British nuclear weapons plants at Aldermaston; notes too that an Aldermaston spokesman asserts that 'Government would obviously not award the contract to a company which had not already got a proven track record on safety'; further notes that this company in the United States of America has been allegedly responsible for dangerous sloppiness and confusion over safety inspections, taking 'short cuts' with workers' health and safety, unlawfully firing employees who reported safety problems, failing to provide adequate quality assurance, failing to establish effective management for nuclear plant construction, paying $35,000, to a former employee in an effort to silence his concerns on health and safety matters, paying $750 million damages in out of court settlement to Houston Lighting & Powers for design failure, construction errors and planning faults, incarcerating eight inspectors in a room at Comanche Peak for several hours in retaliation for raising safety concerns, attempting to silence 'whistleblowers' and giving rise to many of the 2000 outstanding personal injury lawsuits pending judgement at the South Texas Nuclear Project and the Comanche Peak Facility; and, in view of the foregoing, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to institute as a matter of urgency a thorough scrutiny of the company's track record for health and safety in nuclear engineering on the other side of the Atlantic before letting it assume responsibility for such matters within the nuclear weapons establishments of the United Kingdom.

This motion has been signed by a total of 30 MPs.