Helicopter Search and Rescue Service

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and congratulate him on bringing this issue before the House. It is genuinely important to his community in Shetland, which I was pleased and honoured to visit in the summer. I know Sumburgh well, because I was fogged in there for some considerable time. I got to know his constituency from going all the way to the Sullom Voe terminal to support the jobs there and, in my previous job, from visiting the jobcentre in Lerwick. I also met the amazing Shetland Community Bike Project, which the right hon. Gentleman and I both support; the lady who runs it in such an amazing way is Caroline Adamson.

Parking that to one side, for rural or coastal communities such as the right hon. Gentleman’s—likewise, my constituency in Northumberland is one of the largest in England—it matters tremendously to have air ambulance or search and rescue available. That principle is totally accepted. As he rightly identified, I am not the Minister who deals with this particular matter, which was previously dealt with by the noble Baroness Vere, but the responsibility has passed to my new Lords colleague, who will doubtless be in contact with the right hon. Gentleman on an ongoing basis.

I put on the record my thanks to my local air ambulances, and that I have raised money for them. They are a vital organisation: the Great North Air Ambulance in my part of the world is very special and I have fundraised for it. The air ambulances in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency are also exceptionally good; I know of them and have met people from them in the past.

We need to pay tribute to the amazing work done by our search and rescue services. They continue to provide a superb response, saving lives across the country, often in the most difficult circumstances. As the right hon. Gentleman so eloquently detailed, search and rescue has clearly done great work through Storms Babet, Ciarán and Debi, over the past few years. In particular, there was the incident when helicopters from Sumburgh and Humberside, along with an oil and gas helicopter, successfully rescued 45 workers from the Stena Spey on 21 October.

I want to address some of the points made in the letter of 31 October and on the ongoing situation raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. For the first part, I correct the date given in the letter of 31 October: it is not 1 January 2027, but 1 October 2026. Secondly, like him, I find interesting the comment about what a redaction of a leak is, but the blunt truth is that that is not a document that the MCA has or has seen. More particularly and importantly, it is an internal Bristow document at, I suspect, an early stage of the particular processes that we are not aware of.

It is important to understand the degree of funding here. For the first part, Government funding to the MCA has gone up over the past few years and also this is a £1.2 billion investment into search and rescue on an ongoing basis. I will set out a little of that. The Department for Transport has made huge efforts to ensure that we have a robust national network of search and rescue aircraft, with the capacity to meet the operational challenges faced by His Majesty’s Coastguard throughout the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman is particularly concerned with Shetland, but I will give a brief overview.

An agile fleet of aircraft is not restricted to specific operational areas, but can instead be deployed across the country and it can surge according to demand. That is not simply helicopters, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly outlined; there are huge numbers of additional support, which can be provided. The award of the UK second-generation search and rescue aviation programme to the incumbent, Bristow Helicopters, was announced in July 2022. That is a further £1.6 billion investment in maintaining and enhancing our search and rescue aviation fleet for the next 10 years.

No bases are being closed in any way whatever. All the existing bases will continue to provide a 24-hour search and rescue service, as they do today. They will be supplemented by two new seasonal bases to provide enhanced support to northern England, Scotland and the coastal areas during the busy summer months from April to September.

It is always a delight to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his place; we have crossed swords in an amicable way on many occasions in the past. He asked about this issue in relation to Northern Ireland. At the present stage, his community is covered by Caernarfon and Prestwick, and there is ongoing support across there. Obviously, he has his own situation—

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

Briefly.

[Jim Shannon]

I welcome the Minister’s understanding of that, but the point I tried to make in my intervention is that Northern Ireland needs its own. The issue is all about time whenever these things happen, and we need the response in a shorter time that what is offered. I am grateful for the response, but I suspect that it is not adequate for Northern Ireland as a whole with its population of 1.95 million.

[Guy Opperman]

The point is fairly made. My noble Friend in the Lords will answer him in writing and I am sure will very happily meet and discuss that with the hon. Gentleman on an ongoing basis. There is cover from a multitude of bases on an ongoing basis, and what we are dealing with here is obviously in respect of search and rescue over and above any air ambulances that operate locally.

To return to the points raised, there is also the use of fixed-wing surveillance aircraft, with fixed-wing bases being established at Newquay and Prestwick. These aircraft, which are equipped with state-of-the-art maritime search technology, are crucial in supporting search and rescue operations across the United Kingdom. There is also the introduction of the King Air B350 extended range, with which HM Coastguard will have the ability to deploy assets to the extremity of the UK search and rescue region in the mid-Atlantic. It also uses a number of technological innovations in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles and a novel communication called OneLink.

Turning to the service provision in Scotland, I want to address the key point raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland in respect of the situation going from 15 to 60 minutes. That was supposed to be the situation going forward, but I can confirm that the Department for Transport has been informed by His Majesty’s Coastguard that it has begun an analysis of the SAR incident data compiled after the UKSAR2G procurement commenced. That work has begun and is ongoing, and obviously the results will be conveyed in the future to all Members who are particular concerned by it—the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), who have raised this particular point in correspondence.

The analysis is in recognition of the fact that the UKSAR2G procurement was undertaken at a time of considerable societal and economic upheaval during the pandemic, and that may have had a lasting impact on demand for the service. There is no doubt, if one looks at the statistics—and I have the statistics—that on occasions, over the last few years, the numbers have clearly been potentially lower than they may be going forward.

[Mr Carmichael]

In fact, the briefing given to me by the Shetland Fishermen’s Association this morning said that there had been something in the region of 180-plus call-outs of the Sumburgh-based Shetland helicopter—over what period that is, I do not know. But the issue is not just about the number of call-outs; it is about the fact that, because of where we are, we are that much further removed from other opportunities for rescue services. Also, we do get some of the worst weather in country—and not just in the form that the Minister has experienced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

I completely accept that August is the best time to visit the Shetland Isles in many respects, notwithstanding the fact that I was fogged in. The right hon. Gentleman’s point is fairly made—the further north we go, the further the weather impacts.

I want to assure the House and the right hon. Gentleman that the UKSAR2G contract terms allow for a review of any area of the service against changes in demand, technical developments or innovations, which will be done periodically. The point is that that would have been done in any event. Should the analysis in this instance indicate that amendments to the new service are required in light of changes to the demand profile, then the Department for Transport can pursue those via the appropriate contractual mechanisms and approval processes.

The review will be undertaken at the end of this year going into next year, at which time we will be happy to share the outcome with hon. Members. It will take many months, so it will not happen in the short term. I make the simple point that there will be no change to this service, in any event, for many years to come; as the title of the right hon. Gentleman’s debate on the Order Paper suggests, we are talking about the future provision. I can advise that all four current helicopter bases in Scotland will remain open, with additional fixed-wing capabilities and a seasonal base in north-west Scotland to provide additional enhancements on an ongoing basis.

The right hon. Gentleman raised other, particular points. I have answered in relation to the date and the redaction. With regard to the change in aircraft type due to take place on 1 October 2026, it is clearly the case that the introduction of the Leonardo AW189 provides a high-endurance and world-leading capability. It is proven in the search and rescue environment under our existing service. It is also comparable to the current Sikorsky S-92 —operating at both Sumburgh and Stornoway—in terms of range and speed. It is unquestionably the case that there was appropriate due diligence before it was made the helicopter of choice on an ongoing basis.

I do not believe I can add much more, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the organisation concerned will go away and work out what documentation it is able to disclose that is not sensitive to contractual matters—those, he will understand, one cannot disclose. But this is a publicly funded service, provided for all of us taxpayers and paid for by the taxpayer, and it is right and proper that there should be proper publication of all matters in relation to that. Ultimately, that will be a matter for sign-off by my noble Friend Lord Davies of Gower, the Minister who has overall control of this, but I can give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that we will disclose whatever we are able to in the circumstances. I thank him for bringing forward the debate. I take the matter very seriously and I fully understand the concerns he has raised. I commend this debate to the House.

Question put and agreed to.