RAF Marham

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

I am delighted to have secured this Adjournment debate today on an issue that is critical not only for my constituents but for Norfolk as a whole and, more broadly, for East Anglia. There has been a lot of talk over the past few weeks about the future basing of the Tornado aircraft. These discussions have involved high politics, not least because we are in the run-up to the Scottish elections. I want to talk today about how the decision ought to be based on military and economic criteria, taking into account issues such as employment and deprivation. We cannot allow this debate to be dominated by politics. On this day of all days, as we pay tribute to our brave service personnel, it is important that their needs should be taken into account.

RAF Marham was established in 1916 to defend us against the German zeppelins. Its personnel fought in the first world war, the second world war and, more recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a great deal of anxiety about their future among the personnel at the base, some of whom have recently returned from Afghanistan.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

I had the privilege of visiting RAF Marham recently as part of the all-party parliamentary armed forces scheme, and of meeting members of the Tornado squadron there. That squadron has been in combat for almost six years solid, and it makes a big contribution to our activities in Afghanistan. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is up to us to support it by giving it some stability?

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is exactly how I feel. The 2 Squadron recently returned to a heroes welcome in Swaffham, and I know how important it is for the local community and for those people who are based at RAF Marham that this decision be taken properly and rationally. We cannot play politics with people’s jobs and with our nation’s defences.

Among the key features of RAF Marham are the engineering and maintenance facilities based there. There is a high level of expertise, on the industry side and on the military side, which has taken years to develop. Indeed, there were previously eight separate locations for the maintenance and engineering facilities, but they have been consolidated at RAF Marham. I understand that those facilities are one third more efficient than their US counterparts in manpower terms. Over the years, they have saved billions of pounds for the Exchequer. To move those facilities elsewhere would cost at least £50 million, simply because of the levels of hardware and personnel involved.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend visited RAF Marham with me earlier this year. Will she reflect on what we were told by BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce engineers about the specialist layout for depth maintenance at Marham, which cannot be replicated elsewhere because of the size of the facilities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend has made a good point about the facilities, but I am thinking not only about the facilities but about the staff. I fear that, at a time when we are involved in a conflict in Afghanistan, moving the skills base—as well as the physical presence to which my hon. Friend has referred—would be dangerous and costly, and I do not think that we can afford to do it.

RAF Marham has built up a tremendous skills base locally. Unfortunately, the area suffers from relatively high unemployment and deprivation, and the skills and jobs at RAF Marham are very important to local people. I recently visited Hamond’s high school, where many young people told me of their aspirations to join the Royal Air Force and become engineers. It would be disastrous to remove such a source of aspiration for young people from that area at this time. Many young people take up apprenticeships at RAF Marham, and it has built up tremendous support in the community.

I am very pleased that so many of my hon. Friends from Norfolk, East Anglia and elsewhere are in the Chamber. All nine Norfolk Members of Parliament—and let me point out to the Minister that they are all flying the coalition colours—have backed RAF Marham, because they know how important it is to the Norfolk economy. All eight councils in Norfolk, controlled by all three major parties, have also come out in support of RAF Marham as part of our “Make it Marham” campaign. I believe that in due course a petition will be presented to the Secretary of State and at No. 10 Downing street. That is not to mention the town mayors and the local businesses, which will be affected by any change.

There is a huge degree of local support for RAF Marham, and a huge amount of local pride has been invested in it. However, it is not just a question of the support that it commands locally. There is also the military presence that it affords, and the location that it provides for the conflict in which we are engaged in Afghanistan. It is possible to fly from RAF Marham to our forward operating base in Cyprus without the need for in-flight refuelling. That does not apply to other air force bases, and I think it is an important factor. RAF Marham is also well located for our United States allies in Lakenheath and Mildenhall.

RAF Marham has the RAPTOR—Reconnaissance Airborne Pod for Tornado—system, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) and I saw during our visit, and also a tactical imagery intelligence wing, which produces high-quality images that are used not only by our service personnel but by our key allies. A large amount of important equipment and military intelligence is collected there. During the current conflict, we hear a great deal about the ground forces but slightly less about the role of the Tornado, because it is rather more secret and not open to public view in the same way. As was said earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), we ought to support what those people are doing.

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her hard work in support of RAF Marham, which affects a number of our hon. Friends. If RAF Marham were to close completely, only one Ministry of Defence base would remain in Norfolk—at Swanton Morley, a former RAF base that is now the base of the Light Dragoons. There is a lot of concern in Norfolk. RAF Coltishall, part of which is in my constituency, closed six years ago, but 80% of the base—now owned by the Ministry of Justice—has still not been taken over. The fear has always been that RAF Marham would be left on its own. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether, if either RAF Lossiemouth or RAF Marham lost the RAF operational element, any of the military units from the United Kingdom support division would go into whichever base was closed.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the detrimental effect of the closures that we have already seen in Norfolk and East Anglia. I should like the Minister to consider the future of RAF Marham when the Tornado is retired. My understanding of the 2005 report on the joint strike fighter is that RAF Marham was considered a suitable option for the JSF. As the equipment is modified and—I am given to understand—the noise levels would be lower, it might be a potential future location, so we could continue building on our excellent engineering and maintenance facilities.

[Mr Bacon]

On my hon. Friend’s point about the JSF, because Marham has an extra-long runway it could be used by a wide variety of aircraft, not just the JSF. Also, when we were there, we saw an enormous amount of expensive work, paid for with taxpayers’ money, being done to refurbish the runway.

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is right, and my hon. Friend makes a very good point about the amount of taxpayers’ money that has already been invested. I agree that that would be wasted if we were to give up on even an alternative Ministry of Defence use for Marham, which is so specialist in the RAF. That is an extremely important point.

We have had a long discussion about the economic and military value of RAF Marham, and I thank my colleagues for their interventions, but I also want to talk about its economic value locally and the key factors for west Norfolk, about which I know my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), who is present today, is also well aware.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate on this of all days. I have absolutely no axe to grind as I live some distance from Norfolk and represent a constituency that is a great distance away. I also congratulate the hon. Lady on her delicate approach to this issue, but does she agree that it is crucial in the review that community is not set against community and that the MOD makes decisions on their merits? It is important that all communities behave in as dignified a way as the hon. Lady has this evening.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I think that is absolutely right. No MP wants to see the source of much local employment and pride in their constituency closed down. I fully appreciate that, and I know that Opposition Members are genuine in the case they might make for the base in their constituency. However, I want to make the case today that RAF Marham is located in an area with particularly high unemployment and deprivation, and I will draw the comparison with Lossiemouth. The unemployment rate in the west Norfolk borough is 7.4%, whereas in Moray in Scotland it is 4.8%, so west Norfolk has significantly higher deprivation. We should also look at the skills levels: 15% of the population in west Norfolk do not have any qualifications, compared with 9.6% in Moray.

[Thomas Docherty]

rose—

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am sorry, but I will not give way again, as I have already taken a number of interventions.

There is also a higher proportion of children on free school meals in west Norfolk. I say that not to denigrate other bases, because I accept that no MP wants bases closing in their area, but to make the point to the Minister that west Norfolk has relatively high unemployment and deprivation, and that ought to be taken into account. I should also point out that more people are employed at RAF Marham than at Lossiemouth and Kinloss combined. More than 5,000 people are employed at RAF Marham, as against 2,300 at Lossiemouth and 1,800 at Kinloss. Those statistics also need to be taken into account when the decision is made.

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point that all areas are suffering from their own difficulties, but it would be wrong for those very high levels of unemployment and deprivation not to be taken into account in the national debate just because some parts of the country shout louder than others. That is a concern to me, because it is very important that this decision is made on proper grounds—military grounds, economic grounds and the grounds of the public purse. This should not be about politics trumping economics; it should be about a secure skills base for communities—in my case, in west Norfolk—and a secure military future for our country, and in this instance not just for the Tornado force, but for the JSF moving into the future.