Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what research he has commissioned into the potential effect of electro-magnetic radiation on people in local communities.

In the United Kingdom, the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme (MTHR) commissioned and managed an extensive and comprehensive programme of work that ran for 11 years until 2012. MTHR was jointly funded by the Government and industry. The Government continues to support research on this topic, including the ongoing Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health and the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phone studies at Imperial College London.

Public Health England (PHE) advises that the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines, which already underpin Government policy on these matters, provide protection for local communities; the conclusions arising from research to date are reflected in this advice. Measurements made by Ofcom and PHE have shown that exposures of the general public living near to mobile phone masts are well within the ICNIRP levels. Further information is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/electromagnetic-fields

PHE has committed to keeping emerging evidence on these matters under review.