No nuclear cover up - Blair

Environmental protestors outside Downing Street

Tony Blair has said it was necessary to keep hidden details of a deal to accept a controversial shipment of weapons-grade uranium into the UK.

The prime minister told MPs in the House of Commons that the agreement had to be taken behind closed doors for security reasons.

The government spent most of Wednesday defending its management of the consignment, which came to light after details were leaked to the New York Times.

At issue is a 5kg package of radioactive uranium which is currently held at a nuclear power reactor in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Tony Blair: "We have followed entirely the normal rules"

The uranium is mostly low-grade material and relatively safe to handle. However, a small amount is irradiated reactor fuel, which is far more dangerous.

In the hands of experienced terrorists it could be used as the basis for a nuclear bomb.

Georgia, which suffered a civil war in the early-1990s, is judged unsuitable to keep such potentially lethal material and there are fears it could fall into unsafe hands.

It is against this backdrop that the government has agreed to accept the package for storage, and reprocessing, at Dounreay in Scotland. France and Russia both turned down the consignment.

While some environmentalists and politicians have complained that Britain is allowing itself to become a "nuclear dustbin", most criticism has centred on the government's handling of the issue.

Tony Blair told the Commons at Prime Minister's Question Time: "We have followed entirely the normal rules for transportation for civil nuclear fuel.

"We could not - since the reason for this is the fear that rebels take over the civil nuclear reactor - announce it as such."

"We will give full details the moment the transportation has occurred," Mr Blair promised.

His response was echoed later in Parliament by Foreign Office Minister Doug Henderson, who issued an emergency statement on behalf of the government.

Mr Henderson also repeated the prime minister's claim that the decision to accept the uranium was "made in support of our policy on non-proliferation and our obligations to enhance security and safety."

Robert Maclennan: "Scotland not a soft touch"

Mr Blair said that, when treated, the dangerous irradiated reactor fuel would amount to just two drums. These would sit alongside the 14,000 drums already stored at Dounreay.

Mr Blair pointed out that the US has already taken some 350kg of highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan, and Russia has taken 137kg from Iraq since the Gulf War.

The government has said it intends to turn the uranium into medical isotopes to help the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

But some doctors say there is already a surfeit of such isotopes in the UK.

Meanwhile Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond complained that Dounreay is unfit to accept the shipment. Reprocessing at the plant is on hold for a safety review.

But the Liberal Democrat MP for Dounreay, Robert Maclennan, said Mr Salmond's claim that Scotland was a "soft touch" was a "load of rubbish".

"We have the capability in the north of Scotland to deal with it safely," he said.