Air Force (Constitution) Act 1917

Douglas Ross Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) on securing this important debate.

It is my great privilege to represent a constituency with a long and distinguished association with the Royal Air Force, which continues to this day. I was honoured to be present earlier this month, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), at a ceremony at RAF Lossiemouth in Moray. The First Secretary of State unveiled a frontline Typhoon jet, which was renamed Sir Roderic in honour of an RAF tradition born of one family’s tragedy in 1941. I am sure that many hon. Members present for the debate who have an association with the RAF will be aware of the story of the MacRoberts, but I shall tell it briefly, as I think it is important to mention it today.

In 1941, Lady MacRobert lost two sons who flew with the RAF within six weeks of each other. Roderic was only 25 when he was killed leading a Hurricane aircraft attack on German positions in Iraq. Iain, aged 24, was declared missing in action after his Blenheim aircraft failed to return from a mission flown over Shetland. His body was never found. Their older brother Alasdair had been killed in a civil aviation accident in 1938. The response of Lady MacRobert was to buy a £25,000 Stirling bomber for the RAF, stipulating that it be called MacRobert’s Reply. In 1942, Lady MacRobert donated a further £20,000 to purchase four Hurricane fighters, which were sent to RAF operations in the middle east. Three were named after her three sons and the fourth was named after her. A succession of RAF aircraft have carried the MacRobert name ever since. I had discussions with the MacRobert Trust in Lossiemouth earlier this month, and it continues to do excellent work to this very day.

RAF Lossiemouth was on the frontline during the second world war. For instance, one officer and two aircrew members were killed on 26 October 1940, when Lossiemouth was attacked by the Luftwaffe for the first time. Several aircraft were destroyed and three hangars were damaged, and the resultant holes from the cannon fire are still visible today. The famous Dambusters squadron, which we heard about earlier, launched its raid on the battleship Tirpitz in November 1944 from Lossiemouth. The squadron returned to the base the year I was born—1983—flying Tornado aircraft, prior to being disbanded from service in March 2014.

In addition to RAF Lossiemouth, we have RAF Kinloss, which was commissioned in 1939 and served as a training establishment during the war. It provided the aircrew that defended our islands and took the fight to the enemy. More recently, Kinloss served with great distinction as a base for the Nimrod fleet, and before that the Shackletons, which patrolled our shores for many decades. Although the RAF has since departed from Kinloss, its tradition with the armed forces continues—39 Engineer Regiment has found an excellent home there.

Since the war, Lossiemouth has been a major base for the RAF, apart from a gap between 1946 and 1972 when the Fleet Air Arm operated from the base, during which time it was known as HMS Fulmar. It distinguished itself during the Gulf war in the 1990s, when Buccaneers flew regularly over Iraqi airspace on pathfinding missions. The Buccaneer force became known as the “Sky Pirates”, in reference to the maritime history of the Buccaneer. Each aircraft had a Jolly Roger flag painted on the port side, along with nose art featuring female characters. In recognition of the plane’s Scottish roots, the Buccaneers were named after famous Speyside Scotch whiskies, including Glenfiddich, Glen Elgin and Macallan—I am sure many will be happy that the Chancellor of the Exchequer continued the freeze on whisky duty yesterday—which ensured that two great Moray traditions were combined: service in our armed forces and an appreciation of some of our finest malts.

Lossiemouth is now one of the two main operating bases for the Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 in the United Kingdom, and is home to three frontline units that operate the Typhoon, each of which contributes to the quick reaction alert capability, which provides continuous protection for UK airspace. The UK Government plan significant investment at Lossiemouth to accommodate the RAF’s new fleet of Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft, which are expected to enter into service in 2020.

In October 2016, when I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I was delighted to become the first ever UK politician to be offered the chance to fly in a Poseidon P-8. The predecessor of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney had been in a P-8 at the Farnborough air show but had never got into the skies in one, so I had the accolade of being the first ever UK politician to get up in the skies in one and to see at first hand the new aircraft’s capabilities. It was a great experience to see Moray from the skies and the flight deck, and to hear the RAF aircrew’s excitement at bringing that new type into service and back to RAF Lossiemouth.

So many people who come to RAF Kinloss and Lossiemouth want to stay in Moray, and a great thing for people who stay in Moray to do is to celebrate our history. There is no better way of doing that and showing how much we appreciate our connection with the Royal Air Force than through our excellent visitor attraction, Morayvia. Morayvia is a charity set up in 2011 by former RAF officers and civilian enthusiasts who wanted to preserve the last remaining Nimrod at Kinloss—the XV244. Since then, the group has grown from the original board, and now has more than 150 members from around the world. The project goes from strength to strength. A visitors centre has been established at the former primary school at Kinloss, and it has been transformed into an outstanding visitor attraction for local people and visitors. Its four-star rating from VisitScotland is testament to the many members and volunteers of Morayvia, who have supported that active organisation, and an extremely active board of directors led by chairman Mark Mair.

Morayvia has many fantastic exhibits, including Sea King, Wessex and Dragonfly search-and-rescue helicopters. They sit alongside an Antonov An-2 biplane and cockpits of Canberra, Vampire and Jet Provost aircraft, which visitors can sit in and experience. Visitors are shown around by former aircrew who either flew in or worked on them. Those former servicemen are Morayvia’s greatest asset. They share their interest, enthusiasm and passion for the aircraft and the RAF with future generations who visit in significant numbers every year.

The pride that all of us in the UK have—it is fitting that we describe our pride as we come to the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force—in our connection with the Royal Air Force is shared by all of us in Moray, given our historical association with the RAF. It is clear that there is great satisfaction to be had in knowing that our relationship with the Royal Air Force not only has been great in years past but will continue for many decades to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry.

I thank the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) for securing the debate. I am sure that everything he said will be welcomed by many RAF personnel, past and present, and their families. If any of my young constituents want a quick precis of the history of the RAF, I will point them in the direction of today’s Hansard. The background he gave us was a tour de force for where the RAF has been and comes from—it was something to behold.

The RAF has always been at the forefront of technology and we can only imagine what it must have been like in 1918 when flying was a great novelty and aircraft design was very much in its infancy. Despite huge strides in that period, the RAF was still very much seen as an ancillary service to land and sea operations during the first world war. Nevertheless, it played a vital role in securing victory. The second world war, however, brought air power to maturity. The aeroplane became a decisive weapon and the outcome of land and sea operations depended on the command of the airspace and having air superiority.

Between 1939 and 1945, the RAF was at the forefront of all operations and, as we all know from our second world war history, it prevented the invasion of Britain, and supported our armed forces in north Africa, Italy, north-west Europe and the far east. The RAF fought continuously around the coast of Britain and over the north Atlantic to protect convoys, as well as in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, while carrying out countless bombing missions into the heart of the then enemy and now—for the time being—European partner, Germany.

The RAF has been on active service in, for example, the Falklands, Afghanistan and Iraq and has supported our ground troops. The level of support that we have had over the years has been second to none during all those campaigns. Through its expertise, the RAF has protected the lives of many of our troops. We can also celebrate the innumerable instances in which the RAF has provided humanitarian support in areas throughout the world under threat of famine or flood.

The RAF is moving into a new era with the American-built F-35 fighter jets and the recently ordered Boeing P-8 reconnaissance aircraft, and the technology of those aircraft is at the cutting edge of flight. The same can be said of the technology that enhances RAF firepower and capability in the air. That, too, is something to behold.

I cannot help but think, however, that the RAF has been let down badly by the Government, especially in that vital area for Scotland of maritime patrol aircraft. I am sure that I am not alone in the Chamber today thinking that the Government’s decision to scrap the Nimrod fleet, which operated out of RAF Kinloss, was a huge mistake and an error of judgment. In the intervening period since then we have seen a greater number of Russian submarine incursions off the north coast of Scotland—in fact, more than we had during the cold war.

[Douglas Ross]

I did not intervene on the hon. Gentleman earlier because we seemed to be having an extremely consensual debate. I will not dwell too much on the point, but will he also accept that despite the disappointment in 2010 about the Nimrod being scrapped, there were safety concerns? Those valid concerns about the Nimrod were expressed by aircrew and their families. The P-8 is a modern aircraft that will do a great job, as the Nimrods did previously. Now we will be covered by that important aircraft based in my constituency at RAF Lossiemouth.

[Douglas Chapman]

I accept what the hon. Gentleman said about the safety of the aircraft, but we have been left with a capability gap. When the then Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), gave evidence to MPs last month, he described the “extraordinary increase” in submarine activity off the north of Scotland.

In the meantime, since the Nimrods were scrapped in 2010, the RAF has unfortunately had to watch from the sidelines as our coast and seaways have been protected by maritime patrol aircraft from Canada, the USA, France, Norway and other NATO allies. The Nimrods have performed that vital role since 1971, after taking over from the Shackleton aircraft. Anyone who takes pride in the RAF will be disappointed that the new P-8s, which the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) spoke of, will not be in service until beyond 2020, meaning that we will not have had full air superiority in and command of our airspace for a period of 10 years. However, this is more of a plea to the Minister, rather than a criticism, given that we are all here to celebrate the RAF in its full glory. We must be attuned to some of the threats that face us and make sure that we have continuous capability over all those areas.

Finally, we have many serving and retired personnel from the RAF in our constituencies. On behalf of the Scottish National party, I thank them all for keeping the whole nation safe for the past 100 years. I hope that decisions can be made to prepare the RAF for the times that lie ahead, keeping it at the cutting edge of technology.