Noise Pollution and Military Aviation

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) on securing this debate. It is a pleasure to see him, albeit virtually. He is a constant advocate on this point for his constituents.

The hon. Gentleman was not wrong in saying that his speech contained many questions. He has already put many to me, to which I have responded with written answers, as he generously made clear. I have written to him in some detail on a couple of occasions, and will do so again. Try as I might to cover as many of his questions as possible, I may need to come back to him on some of the points of detail that he referenced. This is an important debate and I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to it.

For more than a century, the Royal Air Force has defended the skies above the United Kingdom and projected Britain’s power and influence around the world. Today, the RAF remains at the heart of the Government’s approach to conflict and crisis management and remains heavily committed to operations at home and abroad. Of course, our aviation branch is not just the RAF; our Royal Navy and Army aviators play a vital role, too, in ensuring our security at home and around the globe.

The fact is that our aircraft may be required to scramble at a moment’s notice to defend our airspace, in defence of our allies or to participate in operations, as they have done so often over the past 20 years. That is what makes the importance of their training so acute. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman absolutely said that in his remarks and that he does not wish to compromise safety. I know that he appreciates the importance of that.

Since 2012, we tragically have lost seven aircrew in accidents, at home and overseas. Our thoughts remain with the families, friends and colleagues of all those who have died in service. Sadly, we will never prevent all deaths, but our duty is to ensure that our pilots are as well trained as possible, to reduce such fatalities. The ability to train effectively in the benign and friendly environment of the homeland they protect keeps them safe for the dangers they confront on operations.

Flying skills, in particular for low-level flying, are highly perishable and the risk of skill fade cannot be underestimated. Those skills can be achieved and maintained only through practice in a range of environments. I understand what the hon. Gentleman would say, and I was going to make a bad pun involving “Hywel” and the howling that can be a factor of those aircraft. I do not know the straightforward answer to his questions, but I know he will appreciate that we need to be able to have that tactical manoeuvring agility, to test the pilots and to make certain that they are competent in all areas of manoeuvrability. However, I will take up his question with the RAF.

The planes are new, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and they were cleared as perfectly safe by American and European regulators. When those planes come into service, we want to ensure that they are absolutely right for our requirements of them, because we place such a high premium on the safety and security of our crews. Particular problems were identified, for which we wished to enhance security, and I will come on to those later in my speech.

The point that I want to make is that, in terms of decibel levels, this plane is quieter than the plane that preceded it. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in the beautiful part of the country that he represents have noted that there is a low hum, which can perhaps be heard over a longer distance, even though the decibel level may be lower. I recognise that problem.

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman’s other points. Even with vital live training, we take measures to ensure that disturbance is as limited as is practicable. The amount of low-flying training carried out, to which he referred, is strictly limited to that which is essential to achieve and maintain operational effectiveness. Military aircraft are subject to stringent restrictions on heights and speeds, and their operating procedures are designed to minimise disturbance. We ensure that most low-flying training takes place during daylight hours on weekdays, and wherever possible flying units will publish details of upcoming activity online, in local newspapers and on social media platforms. I should add that we sometimes have to do things differently, owing to the vagaries of the British weather, with which we are all familiar, but that is our intent.

I am saddened by the fact that there was a significant increase—by about 50%—in complaints about low flying in 2020 compared with 2019. The only small silver lining I take from that is that it is perhaps indicative of the amount of flying done on weekdays and during working hours, and that, given the amount of home working over the course of the past year, it is only now that this has become more apparent to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and others. It is indicative of our attempts to schedule flying in such a way as cause minimum inconvenience, avoiding evenings, night-time and weekends where possible. However, we need to train at night, as the hon Gentleman referred to. I believe he is right in saying that 95% to 5% is the approximate differentiation between the two; if that is not the case, I will write to him to correct myself. It is critical, as he will accept, that we have proper training in night-flying skills. Where we do that, we try to ensure that night training is completed as early in the evening as possible, to minimise noise and inconvenience at night.

The hon. Gentleman is clearly particularly focused on training and noise pollution around RAF Valley. He knows, and generously remarked on, the fact that night-flying training has brought with it to Ynys Môn a sizeable part of the £3.5 billion of investment currently set aside for military flying training, and that the base is the second largest employer on the island. However, just as the RAF is important to the area, so the local community is important to us. We always wish to act as good neighbours.

I have three specific points on RAF Valley. First, where possible, we use synthetic training, which has a valuable role to play. It is environmentally positive and clearly eliminates noise pollution entirely. We cannot go wholly synthetic, because we cannot divorce flying training from real cockpits, but we use it where we can. That is a growing trend in our training programmes.

Secondly, while those living in the vicinity of flying units will inevitably see more military aircraft activity than other areas of the country, we make efforts, as the hon. Gentleman knows from my letters, to spread that activity as widely and as equitably as possible. He is right that pilots from RAF Valley also fly elsewhere in Wales, over the Isle of Man and into Cumbria. I do not know the exact proportions, but that is something I can look up. I will see what I can do and come back to the hon. Gentleman. There are occasions when pilots will fly elsewhere, refuel, engage in further operations and then return to RAF Valley. I will look into that. He will appreciate that, even if we have a perfect scenario, in terms of programmes, that will always be affected by weather conditions and the practicalities on the day, but I will see what I can do to give more comfort to the hon. Gentlemen’s constituents about how we look to share the inevitable noise around the country.

Thirdly, I know that the new Texan aircraft and training has been of particular interest to the hon. Gentleman. I responded to his parliamentary questions and, more recently, to a letter about safety equipment. There are three aspects to that safety. The first is to ensure that it can operate safely over water. To be absolutely clear, the Texan can operate over water, and does. As the hon. Gentleman rightly observed, it would not get far away from Ynys Môn if it could not go over water, and it does indeed go over the sea. The issue we have is the kinds of sea states that it can operate over to our satisfaction. We are doing our utmost to protect the crews should an accident occur.

There are three issues. On the life preserver and making certain that a light comes on automatically if it hits the water, the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that that has now been sorted. My understanding is that the harness has now been sorted. The remaining issue is to ensure that an automatic life raft deploys in the event of it coming into contact with the water. That has not yet been fixed. Technically, it is difficult. It is a simple bit of kit, but the slot that it has to be placed into is smaller than on most of our other aircraft, so that needs to be addressed. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the timescale for that at the moment, but it is actively being looked into.

What does that prevent? It does not prevent the aircraft from flying over water, but it does mean that we do not fly over water when we have very rough seas—we are talking about the highest level of sea states. The changes we have already made have already significantly increased the amount of flying that has been conducted over water, so the problem has already diminished, and I hope to see it diminish further over time. I stress to the hon. Gentleman that there will always be a certain proportion of training that has to be conducted over land, for obvious reasons to do with the efficacy of the training programme. In any event, the areas immediately to the north of the base, over the Irish sea, contain some of the biggest civil airways, with stringent civil air traffic control procedures that limit our ability to fly in that environment.

We are doing what we can to address the safety concerns about flying over water, and progress has been made. We try to spread the flights further beyond that beautiful part of north Wales that the hon. Gentleman represents, and I will write to him further on that. I recognise that some people find the sound of military aircraft disturbing, and we are always keen to hear from the public about their concerns. That is why we have the MOD’s low flying complaints and enquiries unit, which is the first port of call for members of the public who wish to complain about low-flying military aircraft. Every complaint and enquiry is examined. Nothing is ignored; we investigate properly. Where members of the public allege that military flying regulations have not been followed, a full military police investigation will be conducted into the incident by the defence flying complaints investigation team. Disregard of military flying regulations is not tolerated, and the punishment for those found to have done so is severe.

The hon. Gentleman also asked some questions about the process of acquisition. It is very hard to draw widespread conclusions, but if anything, the decibels emitted from aircraft are falling over time. I think I am right in saying that the old VC10 would, amazingly, have to be 34 miles away from the listener before the noise would finally go. For the Voyager, which replaced it, it is 3.4 miles. That is one example. I hope that, by and large, military aircraft are getting quieter over time, but there are swings and roundabouts in that. As I say, in decibel terms, the Texan is quieter than the aircraft it replaced. I do not know whether there are technical means to quieten the engines beyond what has been proposed. I doubt it, but it is a fair question from the hon. Gentleman. It is a fair challenge, and I will certainly ask that question.

The Texan went through a normal acquisition process, as would be expected in the Ministry of Defence, going through the assets that we need to train our pilots to replace a 30-year-old aircraft and to ensure that it provides value for money. That would all have been undertaken. In parallel with that, we look at the more exacting requirements that we need to place on our aircraft, and again that would have been undertaken on this aircraft, hence the requirement for additional safety measures.

I have probably not heard the last from the hon. Gentleman on this subject. I look forward to further engagements. On the points that he raised that I have not been able to reply to in this debate, I will endeavour to write to him with answers. I recognise the sincerity of his concern on this issue. I trust that he and his constituents recognise the value that is placed on having incredibly good, highly trained, highly experienced pilots, who do the work they do in support of our country and to keep us safe. I thank him for the debate, and I look forward to writing to him and hearing from him again in the future.

Question put and agreed to.