British Overseas Territories: Transport and Infrastructure

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Shutt on tabling this Question for Short Debate, which raises an issue that is in some ways seen as slightly niche. I told somebody this morning that I would be speaking about transport and infrastructure in Ascension, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha. They had lost the will to live before I got as far as saying, “And the Falkland Islands”. There has, perhaps, not been sufficient discussion, debate and oversight of what is going on for our overseas territories.

I am taking us slightly further down into the south Atlantic. We have heard so far predominantly about Ascension and St Helena—not so much about Tristan da Cunha. I will talk a little more about the Falkland Islands, partly because last year, under the auspices of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, I had the opportunity of travelling to the Falkland Islands and therefore stopping in Ascension and coming down. That was quite an efficient although slow route, but it is one that operated twice a week and is clearly important to UK forces. We still have the three services in the Falkland Islands; the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Army are still based in the islands so we need mechanisms to get our service men and women there effectively. That is a question that possibly needs to go back to the MoD, but I have a few other questions I want to raise regarding our service men and women.

There was an established route that worked for the military and for the civilian residents of the Falkland Islands. If they wanted to come to the UK, they could book on to the twice-weekly Voyager flights. That is quite different from the number of services we are seeing at the moment, which might be available going through St Helena or to Ascension using different routes. I seem to recall that when the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, raised this issue in the Chamber during a Question, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, suggested that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, should be sent on the first commercial flight in and out of St Helena. I think the noble Lord might be there for some time because clearly the flights are not frequent.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That may be why he suggested it.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

The noble Lord might say that but I could not possibly comment. However, there is a question about the frequency of the flights and their utility for islanders, whether from Ascension, St Helena or the Falkland Islands.

While I was drafting my notes for today’s debate, I wanted to investigate a little further into Ascension. I looked at the island details online and found a web link for “Flights”. I clicked on it and a message stated, “The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later”. It looks like a dead web page but clearly it also links to the fact that the flights are not functioning either. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, has suggested that we are looking at 2020 before the Ascension airfield will be back in service. That is neither a short nor a temporary break in service; it is a very long time. One question I should like to put to the Minister is: what assessment have Her Majesty’s Government made of the additional costs to HM Armed Forces of the rerouting via Cape Verde?

In answer to a Question for Written Answer tabled on 17 July in the House of Commons, Mark Lancaster stated that it was too early to provide details of the costs related to the rerouting of the South Atlantic Airbridge covering items such as fuel, handling and landing fees, but that they would be tracked and recorded. Is there an answer to that question, because we are looking at at least three years of this rerouting? What is the cost and might it be better to talk to the United States and ask whether the United Kingdom could not assist in the renovation of what is supposed to be called the Wideawake Airfield, although it seems more like fast asleep. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, pointed out, it seems closed to everyone apart from the Americans, and that in itself raises questions. Perhaps the USAF uses smaller planes than the Voyagers flying on behalf of the RAF, but why is that happening? There are questions about maintenance and the costs of dealing with the airfield in Ascension.

There remains a wider set of questions about the role that the United Kingdom feels it can play in association with the British Overseas Territories. For months and years we have been hearing that in the light of Brexit, we are looking to go global. Surely the first places we should be thinking about are our territories overseas whose links to the European Union will be damaged by Brexit. The islands have benefited from British membership of the European Union, including EDF funding. So far, under the current 2014-2020 EU budget, some €21.5 million has been assigned for the Atlantic territories. Has that all been spent, and if not, will it be part of the divorce budget that the United Kingdom is facing? If it is, should we not be thinking about making sure that it is spent in useful ways?

Finally, I should like to touch on infrastructure in the Falklands. It is not only a question of the runway on Ascension; it is also about the roads in the Falklands, in particular the road between Port Stanley and Mount Pleasant airfield. Who is affected by that? In part it is the resident islanders, but it also affects our service men and women. RAF staff may be sent on six-month deployments. The roads are dreadful. They are not necessarily made, and at the moment they are being upgraded at the rate of, I believe, a mile and a half a year, which is all that can be afforded. Will Her Majesty’s Government look at ways of improving the infrastructure, given that it affects not just the islanders but, crucially, our service men and women, who go on long deployments and would benefit enormously from safer and quicker road transport? It would enable them to get to Stanley and spend some of their time not just at the airport.

There is a whole set of infrastructure questions that could be dealt with. A final one concerns IT. Are there mechanisms for looking at, again, communications? Cheaper and more effective IT infrastructure would be most beneficial not just to islanders but to our service men and women.