Britain to ship plutonium to Europe on unarmed ferry

Britain is to ship plutonium suitable for nuclear bombs by unarmed ro-ro ferry, despite the Prime Minister's campaign against the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Blair insisted, shortly after 11 September, that the shipments of fuel from the controversial Sellafield nuclear complex should take place. Yet security for it is to be cut drastically, despite the increasing terrorist threat.

Thiscontradicts the Prime Minister's insistence, repeated in his Newsnight interview last week, that his overriding concern is to prevent the twin threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction coming together.

British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), the nationalised company that runs the Cumbrian complex, has bought a 16-year-old German dry-cargo, ro-ro ferry called Atlantic Osprey. It is to be used to transportmixed oxide fuel, a combination of plutonium and uranium, from Cumbria to Europe.

Security experts have warned that transporting the fuel increases the risk of terrorists getting hold of plutonium. Both Britain's Royal Society and the US government have said that if terrorists hijacked the fuel they could extract the plutonium for bombs "relatively easily".

After the al-Qa'ida attacks, Michael Meacher, the Environment minister, assembled new evidence on the threat and pressed for the shipments to be stopped.

However, he was overruled by Mr Blair. Experts are now shocked and alarmed that security is to be downgraded.

Past shipments of the fuel to Japan have been carried aboard one of BNFL's two armed freighters, either the Pacific Teal or the Pacific Pintail, while the other has sailed with it to offer extra protection. Experts have warned that the freighters, each equipped with three 30mm guns, would be hard-pressed to repel "a real-world attack".

The Atlantic Osprey will not have this protection, and will lack other important safety features. Unlike the Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail it is not equipped with a double hull, and has only one engine, making it much more vulnerable to an accident. Alarmingly, the Osprey caught fire last year, shortly after BNFL bought it.

The fuel will be carried in casks weighing only around five tonnes, compared to those of 100 tonnes used for the Japan shipments. And it will be shipped from the port of Workington, which is less used to nuclear shipments and not as well-protected as the BNFL's usual port at nearby Barrow-in-Furness.

The energy minister, Brian Wilson, denies that "less robust" security measures have been "adopted in order to save money". But he admits that the security arrangements will be "different" from those for the Japan shipments, because they will be travelling a shorter distance.

BNFL says that the use of the Atlantic Osprey has been approved by the Office of Civil Nuclear Security. But this official watchdog is financed and run by the company's owner – the Department of Trade and Industry.

Martin Forwood, the campaign co-ordinator for Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment, which monitors the shipments, said it was "absolute madness to abandon security features at this time of raised terrorist risk and imminent war". He added: "It suggests Mr Blair is either ignorant or disingenuous when he describes his main motive as keeping weapons of mass destruction out of terrorists' hands."