PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION ON DEPLETED URANIUM (12 October 2010)

That this House notes that the British Army maintains depleted uranium (DU) munitions within its arsenal and that 1.9 tonnes of DU rounds were fired by UK forces during Operation Telic in Iraq; recognises the continuing news stories emerging of higher rates of childhood leukaemia and birth defects in Iraqi cities since the conflict began; acknowledges that the Ministry of Defence has released to the United Nations Environment Programme the coordinates where UK forces fired DU; is aware that US armed forces expended at least 404 tonnes of DU ammunition in the 1991 and 2003 Iraq conflicts but have yet to release the firing coordinates to the UN; appreciates that without full transparency it will remain impossible properly to monitor and decontaminate which in turn will lead to avoidable civilian exposures; and calls on the Government to support the resolution to be put before the UN General Assembly this autumn calling on states to provide quantitative and geographical data on DU munitions use to the relevant authorities of the affected states.

Sponsored by:
Sir Peter Bottomley (Conservative)