Coastguard Helicopter Services

Angus MacDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

Thank you for allowing me to speak, Ms Furniss. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. He has long campaigned on this issue and that has won him a lot of gratitude from people in Northern Ireland and across Scotland and, indeed, the UK as a whole.

I have considerable personal gratitude to the search and rescue helicopter service. Ten years ago, my wife fell off a hill while wearing crampons and using an ice axe, and broke everything in her body. I was in London and got a call from somebody to say, “Your wife is lying on the rocks, a few hundred feet down.” I was so concerned that I ran a situations vacant ad in The Oban Times, but luckily it was not needed because of the rescue of my wife by the search and rescue helicopter. My father was involved in Glencoe Mountain Rescue. He always says that the advent of search and rescue helicopters was probably the biggest change in the history of saving people in the mountains.

I am pleased to speak in this debate as my constituency includes Inverness, home to one of the top 10 search and rescue helicopter operations in the UK. Those centres, and the incredible teams who staff them, are an essential part of our emergency service infrastructure. Their stability and effectiveness are not only important but essential, as I know to my benefit. Some people in the Chamber might not be aware of the scale of it. It is a £1.6 billion, 10-year programme, so it is a big contract. The UK search and rescue service provides 18 helicopters and six fixed-wing planes, based in 10 locations, from Newquay up to Sumburgh. There are two aircraft in each base.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned, when the leaked plans to increase the emergency response time for rescue helicopters based at Sumburgh emerged, back in 2023, he acted swiftly and decisively. His efforts paid off as the then Minister, Guy Opperman, stated that the changes would not happen for many years to come, and that

“all four current helicopter bases in Scotland will remain open.” —[Official Report, 22 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 127.]

Hopefully, the new Government will ensure that we continue to hold on firm on that.

Quick responses to immediate problems are vital, but what is even more important is addressing the long-term decline in the services before they reach a crisis point. We need to ensure that the service level commitments do not slip. We have been made aware that there is potential for slippage in the contract. Most people will never need a search and rescue service. However, if they do need one, nothing else will do.

[Jamie Stone]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) will remember an incident in 1999 when a chemical-laden vessel called the Ascania broke free in the Pentland Firth. It was loaded with over 1,000 tonnes of potentially explosive chemicals. The search and rescue helicopters were absolutely instrumental in getting the crew of 14 off the Ascania. Luckily, the situation did not prove disastrous; it could have been. Without those helicopters, there could have been a considerable loss of life.

[Mr MacDonald]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

In the year ending March 2024, coastguard search and rescue helicopters rescued 1,425 people. That figure highlights the sheer scale of their contribution to public safety. From the Inverness base in my constituency alone, there were 321 operations—almost one a day—making it the third busiest in the UK.

As a party, the Liberal Democrats are keeping a firm eye on this issue. One of the things we are concerned about is progress on extending the helipad safe zones at hospitals, which I know has become quite a big issue; I hope the Minister will mention that when he addresses us. Before I conclude, I reiterate the point made my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland. In May 2024, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport stated that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s analysis of search and rescue demand would be published by the end of 2024. Clearly, we are well past that now. I hope the Minister will address that in his closing remarks and keep an eagle eye on the search and rescue contract and its performance. It matters a great deal to people who live in the maritime and rural areas of Great Britain.