Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, on securing this important short debate about the arrangements for search and rescue services both in the local area of Dartmoor and more widely across the UK. I also add my personal thanks to the noble Lord, and to the team of Rhodri Davey, Andy Barton and Paul Hudson, who gave me such a warm welcome and interesting visit last weekend to the Tavistock search and rescue centre.

First, Her Majesty’s Government pay tribute to all our search and rescue teams across the UK, and commend the important contribution that our dedicated search and rescue volunteers and full-time services make to the UK as a whole in rescuing and assisting the many thousands of people who get into difficulty in our wonderful mountains, lowlands, caves and around the beautiful coasts, cliffs and seas of the UK.

The UK is very fortunate to have around 170,000 dedicated search and rescue volunteers who, without expectation of reward, risk their lives daily to assist any person who is in need.

Our search and rescue services are recognised around the world, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Burnett—we can all remember with pride the contribution made by UK cave rescue volunteers to the Thai cave incident in June and July last year, which resulted in the rescue of 12 schoolboys and their teacher in very difficult circumstances, with the world watching their every move.

This rescue embodies the spirit of all the UK search and rescue services, which are always prepared to go the extra mile to help those in need and to save life. We are indeed lucky to have search and rescue volunteer services that include the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Her Majesty’s Coastguard Rescue Service, plus 60 independent lifeboats, all of which readily respond to distress and emergency calls around our coasts and seas, often battling horrendous conditions and the worst that our weather can throw at them.

Our maritime volunteer services attend more than 20,000 incidents a year, rescuing and assisting in excess of 30,000 people. Tragically, some have paid the ultimate price for this self-sacrifice, as the tragedy of the RNLI Penlee lifeboat “Solomon Browne”, which was lost with all hands in 1981, showed. This House pays tribute to the selfless bravery of her volunteer crew.

Inland we have mountain, lowland and cave rescue teams that provide the backbone of inland search and rescue services within the UK. The contribution to public safety by all our search and rescue services, including Dartmoor Search and Rescue, is considerable. My visit to Tavistock brought home clearly the different ways in which these teams contribute to their communities and to our nation’s safety. As my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever said, the Dartmoor team, like many others, was founded on the back of tragedy.

So there is the tangible contribution, with volunteers from Mountain Rescue England and Wales responding to just under 2,500 callouts, with almost 100,000 volunteering hours providing assistance to public safety. In the last few weeks, rescues have included lowering a pilot 1,300 feet when his glider crashed in a snowstorm, rescuing sheep from a rock face in Cumbria, and going out with armed police to assist when a wild camping trip, combined with recreational drugs, went a bit too wild and the participants needed rescuing.

We are lucky to have 27 mountain rescue teams in Scotland and 15 in Northern Ireland, which attended more than 700 callouts in 2017 and assisted about 600 people, giving a further 22,000 hours of their time to assist those in need.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, mentioned our lowland rescue teams. There are 35 of them and in the last year they contributed 60,000 volunteer hours and responded to just over 1,200 incidents. Often the assistance they provide is to locate vulnerable and elderly people affected by mental health and dementia. This is a critical and much-valued service. As I also mentioned, the 15 cave rescue teams in the UK provide a specialist service to assist lost and missing cavers and members of the public, both within the UK and further afield.

The contribution of our search and rescue services to public safety continues to be outstanding, with over 445,000 hours of volunteer time being committed annually to help people in need. But, as well as the tangible contributions, there are less tangible ones: from the commitment of the volunteers, which all noble Lords mentioned, to the support of their families and—as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—of their employers, to the involvement of their communities, particularly in fundraising. Judging by the strength of the friendships and trust between team members that I witnessed in Tavistock, this is an invaluable asset.

But this commitment is not without a price. The mental health charity Mind has provided mental health support for search and rescue volunteers for four years in England and Wales through the Blue Light programme. Mind research has shown—perhaps this is not surprising—that first responders, emergency services staff and volunteers are more likely to experience a mental health problem than the general workforce but less likely to take time off work as a result. I declare my interest as a former trustee of the Royal Foundation. The foundation is working in partnership with Mind to explore ways to provide some sponsorship of the Blue Light programme and to make available a 24/7 helpline specifically for the search and rescue community.

The noble Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Rosser, mentioned funding, and in particular the future of Libor funding. The UK search and rescue Libor training partnership is looking at opportunities to use some of the remaining funding to enhance longer-term fundraising opportunities, and the Government are keeping this under close review. I cannot promise the noble Lord a meeting with the Treasury but I will undertake to make sure that details of this debate are shared with it.

My noble friend Lord Astor of Hever asked about the role of drones and technology in enhancing our response. Both Her Majesty’s Coastguard and the RNLI are working together to consider the role of drones to increase the efficiency of search and rescue, obviously to save more lives but also to reduce risk to volunteers. Trials are being considered at the moment. However, I reassure more technophobic noble Lords that search and rescue dogs are still absolutely crucial.

I hope I have covered the questions raised by noble Lords. I spotted only one inaccuracy in your Lordships’ comments, which came from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser: I find it impossible to believe that his maiden speech was anything other than very memorable.

It has been a great pleasure to respond for the Government in this important debate and to recognise not only the terrific work of Dartmoor Search and Rescue but all our search and rescue services and their combined contribution to public safety. I am sure that the House will want to join me in paying tribute to all of them and their volunteers for their courage and skills to save lives in whatever environment.