Gordon Brown will lead a parliamentary debate on Tuesday as pressure mounts on the Ministry of Defence to clear up radiation at Dalgety Bay.
The MP said: “The Ministry must now own up, clean up, pay up and hurry up.
“A Ministry admission that it is the polluter is the only way to bring to an end this long-running saga and to avoid the beach being named a contaminated area the only one of its kind in the UK.
“If it refuses to own up and fund the clean-up then it will be forced to do so by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) taking action against it.
“I hope that on Tuesday, when we debate the concerns of Dalgety Bay residents in parliament, that even at this late stage the Ministry will see sense and back down from their position of refusing to accept liability.”
A recent Sepa report made clear the MoD was the only responsible party for radioactive contamination found at Dalgety Bay shore.
The radiation was found to come from radium-226 in luminising paint used on aircraft instrument dials at nearby HMS Merlin.
Broken up aircraft were incinerated then dumped near the headland and erosion has been causing the contamination to be released into the Forth and washed up on the shore.
In a statement, the MoD said it would consider Sepa’s report findings, stating it had concerns over the “adequacy and validity” of the agency’s approach to the study.
A former head of radiation protection at the MoD, Fred Dawson, warned the denial of liability could result in “a long drawn out expensive process at the end of which the MoD will be found to be liable and suffer significant reputational damage”.