Gordon Brown has used a Westminster debate to urge the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to face up to the facts and own up to its responsibilities to clean up radiation at Dalgety Bay.
The Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath MP raised the issue in the Commons for the third time since leaving Number 10 after the last election.
Speaking in an adjournment debate in the Commons on Tuesday evening, Mr Brown said it was now beyond doubt there was radiation at the bay and that it was caused by the Ministry of Defence breaking up of hundreds of planes after the Second World War.
Mr Brown secured his debate, attended by only a handful of MPs, following the publication of a report on Dalgety Bay by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).
He said: “The bay has been fenced off. The sailing club has had to change its constitution. House prices may yet be affected. We have moved from the world of ifs to the world of certainties. Contamination has been proven, risks do remain.
“The Ministry of Defence is responsible … SEPA have shown the problem is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence beyond all reasonable doubt.
“It is now time for the Ministry of Defence to do the decent thing.
“They should own up, they should then clean up the area, they should pick up the bill for that … and they should hurry up because the residents of Dalgety Bay should not have to undergo another winter when further coastal erosion causes more particles to appear.”
Mr Brown said officials at the Ministry of Defence had in fact already accepted responsibility more than two decades ago pointing out documents dating from 1990 and 1992 to the minister.
He said he fears SEPA will have to declare Dalgety Bay a radiation-contaminated area, the first such site in the UK.
And the former premier warned the scandal would threaten new Ministry of Defence plans to decommission retired nuclear submarines at nearby Rosyth.
“The major objection the residents of Rosyth are raising to the issue of decommissioning of submarines at Rosyth is if the Ministry of Defence cannot be trusted to deal with radiation and contamination at Dalgety Bay,” Mr Brown said.
“How can they trust them to deal fairly with them over the dismantling and breaking up of submarines?”
Defence Minister Andrew Murrison said the chances of a civilian walking along the beach and inadvertently ingesting a piece of radium was less than one-in-10 million, as he warned the former Prime Minister not to raise fears in the community unnecessarily.
He said the Ministry of Defence had already spent £825,000 monitoring the level of radiation on the beach, adding that the Government thought some of the research done by SEPA was “incongruous”.
Turning to Mr Brown in the Commons, the minister said: “I am sure that you agree with me that in matters of this sort where there is controversy over the evidence, and particularly over the risk assessment which is central to this… that we are absolutely clear about the science, and in particular the risk assessment.
“That lies at the heart of the difficulty with some of the work that SEPA has done. However, at the end of this month (MoD) officials will meet with SEPA and I very much hope that in light of the evidence that you have alluded to that may be forthcoming in the next few days, we may be able to plot a way forward.”
Mr Murrison added: “I have to say to you, you were of course in high office for 13 years and did nothing on this subject, that you need to be very careful indeed about raising fears in your local population. You know full well that the Government will comply with statute but more than that will do anything it can voluntarily to protect public health.
“But it has to be on the grounds of science and it has to be on the grounds of a proper risk assessment.”