Itparallels and complements the on-going work Government is carrying out on the policyfor the management of higher activity radioactive wastes under our Managing RadioactiveWaste Safely programme, following recommendations made by the Committee on RadioactiveWaste Management (CoRWM) in July 2006.As I made clear when I announcedthe consultation, unlike the higher activity wastes, paths for the long-term managementand disposal of LLW already exist but we recognised that there were problems whichneeded to be dealt with in that:with the Nuclear DecommissioningAuthority (NDA’s) decommissioning and clean-up programme underway, there will begreatly increased arisings of LLW over the coming decades, and this is already startingto happen;there will be insufficient capacityat the national LLW disposal facility near Drigg in Cumbria to dealwith this waste, and the future capacity of this facility is currently also underreview;while other disposal routes forcertain types of LLW have been used (e.g. by disposal on or near the site of arising,by controlled and uncontrolled burial to landfill and by incineration), the availabilityof these other routes has diminished in recent years, andfinding small-scale treatmentand disposal routes for the least radioactive LLW, which are very important forthe non-nuclear sectors (hospitals, research and education establishments, and theoil and gas industry) is proving increasingly difficult.The revised policy recognisesthat much LLW has very low levels of radioactivity and can be disposed of in a varietyof ways while posing a negligible risk to human health or the environment.