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The Minister for Veterans and People (Louise Sandher-Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) for securing this important debate and speaking with such passion on behalf of the bereaved families who were impacted by this tragic accident 31 years ago. As he will know, I am a veteran myself. I know that the pain of losing loved ones does not diminish with the passage of time, and nor should it. In this case, there is the added hurt for families of not knowing, after more than three decades, precisely why the Chinook crashed or why their loved ones died. As he may know, I served in the Intelligence Corps. The loss of the Intelligence Corps personnel on board was felt when I joined in 2014 and, indeed, I discussed it with former colleagues recently. Their legacy is very much still alive and the impact of their service very much still remembered.
Colleagues will be well aware that the courts are considering the Chinook Justice Campaign’s request for a judicial review of the ministerial decision not to grant a new public inquiry into the accident. The judicial review process is a vital mechanism to hold public bodies to account and the courts will make their decision fairly and impartially. I will not provide a summary of our response to the courts or justify our position, but I will touch on a few points, including those raised in the debate.
I want to focus on the lessons that have been learned and applied as a lasting legacy of the 29 people who we lost that day and I know are greatly missed. It is vital that the public have confidence that those of us in positions of responsibility will honour our commitment to the duty of candour. That is the message at the heart of the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, which I am pleased to say has cross-party support for the reasons that we have heard several Members address today.
I want to address some of the points about the files that are held in the National Archives. There are claims that the files contain vital information about the cause of the crash, and that the information has been intentionally withheld. As we have stated publicly, the documents contained in the files have been reviewed by officials, who have confirmed that they contain no information that would offer new insights into the crash. I understand that only 0.1% of the documents are subject to the 100-year review. Most of those relate not to maintenance or repair logs, but to compensation or personal details, which of course was the reasoning for the 100-year closure in the first place.
Tessa Munt
I have done quite a lot of reading and received information from the family, but it is not clear to me the date on which the documents were sealed or by whom. Can the Minister confirm that? Who made the request that they be sealed, who made the decision that they should be sealed, and when was that decision made? I do not expect her to be able to answer off the top of her head, so I am happy for her to write to me.
Louise Sandher-Jones
I do not have the exact details to hand right now, but it is quite routinely the case that, where documents of this nature contain personal information, they are closed for 100 years to allow for the people whose details they contain to have passed away, at which point the privacy considerations obviously change.
Tessa Munt
I understand why they have been sealed. I would like to know who made the decision to seal the documents for 100 years, and on what date it was made. It was clearly not in June 1994, because it lasts for 100 years. Somebody made the decision after that date to seal those documents.
Louise Sandher-Jones
I will get the hon. Member the information. I understand that they are sealed until 2094.
Carrying on the point I was making, there is some material, from various sources, that puts forward theories relating to the crash, but those theories have been publicly aired in previous investigations, and I reiterate that the reason for those documents being closed is that they contain personal information. As has been mentioned, that is up for review in 2029. Although these documents are FOI-able, personal details would none the less remain redacted. The files have been transferred to the National Archives, which is standard practice, and the personal data has been marked as closed.
There have been six investigations and inquiries into the crash of Chinook ZD576. As a result of those, and the inquiries into the tragic fatal crash of RAF Nimrod XV230 in 2010, the Department has made a number of very important changes to its air safety and incident—
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Did the Minister just say that all of these documents would be FOI-able and would then be released, albeit in redacted form, presumably in the usual way, with personal details being blacked out?
Louise Sandher-Jones
Yes, that is the information I have been given.
The Department has made a number of important changes to its air safety and incident review processes since 1994. As we heard from the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), the change to the board of inquiry process so that negligence is not attributed to dead airmen is a hugely important step, which resulted partly from the investigations of this incident.
Chief among the changes is the establishment of the Military Aviation Authority, an independent and autonomous body that ensures that expert, no-blame investigations of safety-related incidents and near misses across all defence domains are independent, impartial and timely. As recommended by the board of inquiry report, accident data recorders and cockpit voice recorders are now installed across the vast majority of Ministry of Defence air fleets, and formalised instrument meteorological conditions climb procedures were introduced throughout the RAF to support aircrew to safely negotiate poor weather conditions. Today the RAF has a robust and effective safety management system, and a commitment to total safety is embedded in the culture of the organisation.
Sir Julian Lewis
I apologise for intervening after having stepped out for part of the debate—this may already have been covered. Has any consideration been given to possible embarrassment over the decision to put so many staff, in so many sensitive positions, into a single aircraft? Despite my past interest in this case, I am not sure that I have ever heard that rules have been changed so that so many precious resources are not put at risk all in one single vehicle.
Louise Sandher-Jones
It is a very interesting point. I understand the reference, and I would be interested to know about further standard operating procedures. I am sure that, as the right hon. Member will understand, it is quite a rare occurrence to have that many senior people on the same airframe in the course of business, but I cannot say right now that that is definitely the case, or what the bounds are in terms of ranks and so on. I am sure the right hon. Member will appreciate that.
Tessa Munt
Exactly as has just been said, I asked earlier whether, and when, that practice had been changed. I would very much like to know the date on which that decision was made, the nature of the decision and its wording, which I would share with the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).
Louise Sandher-Jones
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and note her request.
The hon. Member for North Down spoke movingly in his compelling speech about our moral duty to uncover the truth. I am committed, as I know my colleagues are, to the contract with those who serve our nation—we are serving them. Part of that contract is that when we ask them to do dangerous things, or put them into harm’s way, we have a moral duty to have done what we can to mitigate the risks they will face. To do that, we must do all the preparatory work necessary and learn the lessons when there is the opportunity to do so.
Let me briefly address a point—a single point, and not necessarily the entire argument—raised by the hon. Member for North Down and others. Although the review by Lord Philip was not statutory and therefore did not have the power to compel, I note that nobody who was called to give testimony absented themselves. Although they were not compelled, nobody refused to come.
The right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) made an excellent point about the need for the Government to be open. I wholeheartedly agree on that, and on the need for accountability. I have already addressed the point made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke passionately, as he always does, on behalf of those who have suffered. I reiterate the importance of getting to the truth of what happened. That is the central driving point and why we are all here for this debate.
The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) spoke passionately on behalf of her constituents, and rightly called for justice and transparency. She called on us to read those 29 names, as I will do after this debate. She made the valid point that we must remember each and every person we lost in the crash. I thank her for her impassioned call.
The hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) asked some very important questions, and I will write to her on the specifics. I hope I have already addressed at least some of her questions about the closed documents. Her point about the families not being told about the documents being sealed is a valid one. In this and similar situations, it is incumbent on us, the Ministry of Defence, to communicate everything we can to the affected families. I thank her for raising the point.
The hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O’Hara) raised the issues that the families have faced over the past 31 years in getting to the truth of what happened to their loved ones and why, and in achieving an understanding of the factors in the flight. I thank him for speaking so passionately on their behalf.
The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) spoke very well on behalf of his constituents. He made an important point about the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill. As he will know, some Government business is quite rightly classified, but there is still, of course, a need for accountability. He may be aware of my previous military service, and he will know that I absolutely understand the value of being able to carry out classified work, but the issue of accountability is valid whether we are talking about classified or unclassified work. I will certainly take his point away with me.
The hon. Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) spoke very well, particularly about his own personal experiences. We heard a Chinook go overhead—
Louise Sandher-Jones
Exactly. It is a sound that the hon. Gentleman and I obviously know very well. Again, this goes back to my service in the Intelligence Corps. Before I deployed to Afghanistan, someone who was interested in my safety, and who was in the corps, told me to be careful, because it is when travelling that, unfortunately, we in the Intelligence Corps tend to lose our personnel. I am well aware that this is not the only crash in which we have lost members of the corps.
We are well aware of that every time we get into a military aircraft, particularly if it will be flying in hostile conditions. Every time I climbed into an aircraft, predominantly RAF Pumas, that had to fly in certain tactical ways—a bit more acrobatically than usual—I, and every single person on that flight, put so much trust in those who maintained, certified and produced the airframe. It is the work of many people to ensure that someone, whether the pilot or a passenger on the flight, can trust that it will get them from A to B as it should. That trust also extends to knowing that if anything happens to a flight, there will be truth and accountability in getting to the bottom of what went wrong, whatever the cause may be, without fear or favour. I very much acknowledge that principle today.
I also acknowledge the level of anger felt by those represented by the Chinook Justice Campaign. The noble Lord Coaker has written to them to invite representatives to meet him, the Minister for the Armed Forces and me, with the meeting scheduled for 16 December. I understand that the families and loved ones of the 29 people killed that day continue to search for answers to explain what went wrong. The review that was undertaken by Lord Philip concluded that the cause of the accident is likely never to be known, and I am truly sorry for that. Once again, I thank the hon. Member for North Down for securing the debate.
Peter Dowd (in the Chair)
Before I call Alex Easton, I remind Members that I have allowed them more flexibility in coming and going than I would ordinarily, given the sensitivity of the issue and people having arrived late. Please bear that in mind in future.
Alex Easton
I thank all Members for their speeches and interventions. On behalf of the families, we appreciate the interest and the real reason: trying to get to the truth. Will the Minister to confirm something the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) mentioned about FOIs? Am I correct in saying that if somebody submits an FOI request for the documents that were sealed for 100 years, they can all be obtained, with redactions? I am willing to take an intervention.
Louise Sandher-Jones
They would have to go through the FOI process, which of course is not—[Interruption.]
Louise Sandher-Jones
I cannot prejudge the outcome of an FOI process for something that has not been asked for, but they can absolutely go through that process.
Alex Easton
I thank the Minister for her answer. We will certainly look at an FOI on that, just to see.
For too long, questions have remained unanswered. Why have the Ministry of Defence documents been sealed for 100 years? Why were repeated warnings ignored time and again? Where was the due diligence on the Chinook Airworthiness Review Team reports, which identified systematic failings? Where was the due diligence in response to the September 1993 report that described the FADEC software as “positively dangerous”? Where was the due diligence on the October 1993 findings of MOD test authorities that were unable to recommend the aircraft for flying? These are not just abstract questions; they go to the very heart of accountability, trust in our institutions, and justice for the families, who have waited far too long.
A 100-year blanket ban of secrecy cannot be allowed to smother the quest for truth, so we will test that with an FOI request. Light must be shone into the darkness. Today we have a choice to continue to hide behind delays and smokescreens, or to honour that long-held principle that justice delayed is indeed justice denied, and finally deliver the truth that is owed to the families through a judge-led public inquiry.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the 1994 RAF Chinook helicopter crash.