Radioactive waste from Britain’s nuclear weapons programme is building up and may soon have nowhere to go, according to painstaking research to be given to the House of Lords this week Steve Boggan looks at the evidence. Britain’s Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston will run out of space to store radioactive by-products from the Trident nuclear programme by 2002.
That is the disturbing conclusion of an investigation conducted by Labour MP Alan Simpson and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament which found Britain’s military waste management in a “chaotic” state. The aim is to improve conditions for the wildfowl and wading birds which breed there in summer, and to provide a feeding and resting ground for thousands which migrate there for the winter.”There are new goodies for the farmer to go for,” he says. It is part of a gradual move towards greener farming in which, instead of farmers being subsidised to over-produce crops using intensive methods, they are paid to look after fields in a way which conserves landscapes and wildlife-rich habitats.Altogether, 9,000 farmers within the ESAs have entered into agreements with the Government. The cost of the fraud alone is pounds 3.5bn a year, says the NCIS.The fraudsters concentrate on con-tricks and benefit fraud, drug-trafficking, mainly cocaine, and illegal immigration. The intelligence agencies are assisting NCIS and British forces in some of the most serious cases.

The secret services can provide expertise in infiltrating the gangs, bugging, covert surveillance and identifying targets.The gangs, which have strongholds in the US and most European countries, form networks to siphon money and have proved difficult to break into. Activities by West African criminals that have been detected include:At the Treasury Solicitor’s office, the Government’s lawyers, a worker was using the fax to work a scam involving advance fees. She was admonished and sacked.An employee at the Department of Social Security was creating false National Insurance numbers and identifications which were being used to claim benefits such as education grants and child allowance. One individual was found with 100 separate identities.A worker at one of the Inland Revenue’s accounts offices was caught photocopying incoming company tax returns, cheques, and headed notepaper. These were sold to a contact who wrote to the banks and set up standing orders for small amounts to be paid into their accounts every month.The Metropolitan Police had a problem with cleaners found looking for data and addresses in a West End police station.An estimated 500,000 “advance-fee fraud” or “419″ letters attempting to con people by promising risk-free cash are sent by West Africans, mainly from Lagos, around the world every year. Today is World Wetlands Day, and Britain’s leading environmental groups are using the occasion to decry the huge loss of the nation’s marshlands – and the birds, insects and plants which rely on wet places.
But the tide is starting to turn.

The Government is paying farmers to make their land boggier, turning arable fields back into marshy meadows.This week, Elliot Morley, the farm minister, will announce new grants aimed at creating and conserving boglands in six of the Ministry of Agriculture’s 43 Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs). For following government instructions they get pounds 27m a year in compensation, which works out at pounds 3,000 for the average participating farmer.The six ESAs earmarked for better bogs and marshes in the latest review are the Breckland of Norfolk and Suffolk, the North Kent grazing marshes, the Test Valley in Hampshire, the Suffolk river valleys, and the Clun grasslands of Devon and the South West of the Peak District.Geoff Newsome, of the ministry’s Farm and Rural Conservation Agency, is responsible for the North Kent marshes ESA, encouraging farmers to join in the scheme and touring the flatlands along the south bank of the Thames estuary to find out if they are sticking to their agreements. For hundreds of years, farmers have been draining Britain’s marshes and bogs to bring them under the plough. Governments have spent millions in the post-war years subsidising their ditch digging, pipe-laying and pumping in order to produce more and more food. For the first time, there will also be a list of schools once judged failing or in need of special measures, but which have been given a clean bill of health.However, the report will also show that the percentage of schools being failed by inspectors from Mr Woodhead’s Office for Standards in Education, remains at around 2 per cent of primary and 2 per cent of secondary schools.A spokeswoman for the National Union of Teachers said: “It is clear that with appropriate management and support every school can do well.” But she rejected the policy of naming and shaming as “kicking schools when they are down. Teachers attacked the Government for its decision to “name and shame” failing schools.

Today, education ministers aim to prove that they are as anxious to applaud as to criticise by “naming and acclaiming” schools which have been turned round. Ministers want to avoid the mistake of the previous government which failed to win teachers’ support for its reforms because of persistent attacks on the profession.
Their announcement comes on the eve of the publication tomorrow of the annual report by Chris Woodhead, the Chief Inspector of Schools, which shows that schools are improving.Mr Byers said: “Last year, the Government was criticised for naming and shaming 18 failing schools. We said that where we found failure we would be open about it. We also said that we would celebrate success.”Mr Woodhead is expected to point that rising standards are in evidence not only in better test and examination results but also in the classroom observations of his inspectors.As usual, his report will list more than 100 schools which have won “Oscars of Excellence” from inspectors. Judith Judd, Education Editor, explains why Stephen Byers, the school standards minister, is holding a Commons reception for the school heads. This has lessened the appeal of “show case” animals and pressured zoos to place added emphasis on conservation.There are some positive signals of a will for change. Last Thursday, MEPs voted for a major shake-up in zoo standards.