Lifeboat Services: Search and Rescue

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is a privilege to take part in this debate, and our thanks are due to my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for making that possible.

We all come to an awareness of volunteer lifeboat crews in different ways. In my case, it was as a schoolboy growing up in Swansea. I remember in the 1950s visiting the Mumbles lifeboat and noting its unusual name. It was called the William Gammon, and it was in later years that I learned the reason for that. It was named after a particularly heroic coxswain of a previous lifeboat—a man who had been awarded a bronze and a gold medal for incredibly brave rescues in 1941 and 1944, but lost his life, together with seven colleagues in his crew, in the great disaster of 23 April 1947, when a former Liberty ship, the SS Samtampa, broke up off Sker Point off the coast of south Wales.

I remember going to the reference library on a research project and looking at the South Wales Evening Post report of that disaster. The headline—I think I am right in rendering it—said: “One terrible tragedy after another in the channel”. It showed the upturned lifeboat and the wrecked ship. That image has never left me. It is a tradition of which everybody who volunteers to serve in lifeboats is all too aware.

In those days, one had to go back to the newspapers to try to relive the experiences and heroism of the lifeboat crews, but today we have modern media. If colleagues on both sides of the Chamber take away only one thought from my brief contribution, it should be this: I urge them to go online and have a look at a BBC documentary called “Cruel Sea”. They can find it on YouTube. It was made in 2006 to mark the 25th anniversary of another disaster—the loss of the Penlee lifeboat. It is a quite extraordinary piece of television; they will never forget it, and I advise them to have a box of Kleenex tissues by their side. I have seen it several times, and I always find it hard to maintain my composure.

The documentary is about the way in which that crew and its coxswain, the late Trevelyan Richards, went out to try to rescue eight people on a vessel, the Union Star, whose engines had failed and was drifting toward the rocks. It contains the actual recordings of the messages that went back from the Penlee lifeboat to the command station, which tried to communicate with the boat. At one point—this was watched by a helicopter crew who were powerless to intervene but saw everything—the crew had managed to get four of the eight people off the ship. The waves were 60 foot high. The Penlee lifeboat was lifted up and actually came down on the deck of the ship it was trying to save the crew from, before being washed off. The crew went back one last time to try to get the last four people, and at that point they were lost.

The thought that remains with me is the calmness of the voice of Trevelyan Richards in moments of extreme peril, right up to the point at which the radio goes silent and we just hear the command station calling, “Penlee lifeboat, Penlee lifeboat, come in.” Of course, it never could. It is an unforgettable programme. It is a great tradition that, to this day, comes down to independent lifeboats such as Solent Rescue, which operates from Lepe in my constituency, and to RNLI stations such as RNLI Calshot. It operates with a 112-foot tower at Calshot Spit, with the aid of the National Coastwatch Institution, spotting the people who get into difficulties in the Solent. Frankly, these are the finest people we will ever know. I do not think I can say anything further than that.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

I thank all Back-Bench speakers for their discipline and self-restraint, which is much appreciated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands]

I should probably sit down at that, yes. I will not put that on my leaflets, obviously.

The hon. Member for Moray brought up the National Independent Lifeboat Association, which I very much support. That leads me on nicely to the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall). I thank him for his work in setting up that organisation. He was right to say that this debate is essentially a moment of consensus when we can thank all those who volunteer and put their lives at risk on our behalf to save those in distress at sea. He also made the point that they do it all by raising their own money. I add my thanks and gratitude to all those who fundraise for, and donate to, the RNLI, making possible all its excellent work, which we have all spoken about.

That brings me on to the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling), who said he was a proud yachtsman and talked about how he shared water safety training with a local school. He, too, reiterated the vital importance of such training for youngsters in school at all ages. As he said, one only has to reflect on the tragedy in Solihull in recent weeks to realise that we must do more in that regard.

The hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) spoke about the impact on the volunteers—the risk they take and the unsocial hours—but also about the impact on the families, which is something we do not always mention, so that was a very welcome point. She also mentioned her new year’s day dip. Rather her than me.

The last speaker, whose constituency I have forgotten—

[Sir Julian Lewis]

New Forest East.

[Gavin Newlands]

Of course; I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reminder. He spoke about the Mumbles lifeboat. I visited Mumbles on a rugby tour over 20 years ago, when a number of us had to be rescued that night—albeit thankfully from the Mumbles mile and not, it must be said, at sea.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned—quite rightly and powerfully, as I said earlier—the Penlee disaster. We should all go online and watch “Cruel Sea”, the documentary he highlighted, which I was unaware of. I will certainly go away and look at it, and I thank him for telling us about it. Hopefully it is on iPlayer.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

It is on YouTube.

[Gavin Newlands]

So it is there for all of us. In the spirit of consensus, I would like to pay particular tribute to lifeboat services in the south of England at this moment, amidst the record small boat crossings. I will not repeat all the statistics that the hon. Member for Torbay helpfully set out at the start, but the numbers are simply huge. Obviously, there are 238 lifeboat stations and 240 lifeguard units. As has been said, the RNLI was founded nearly 200 years ago, and in that time it has saved nearly 143,000 lives. In 2021, it saved 296 people. An average of 35 people are helped every day by RNLI crews.

I want to highlight a couple of people, if I may, who were decorated in the King’s new year’s honours list. An MBE was awarded to Dupre Strutt, a mechanic at the RNLI Kirkwall lifeboat station and a retired area lifesaving manager for Scotland. Dupre was part of the fabric of Kirkwall lifeboat station and had followed in his father’s footsteps, having grown up in the station. Since joining in 1983, Dupre has given 39 years of service to the RNLI, during which time he has been directly involved in over 300 rescues, saving over 60 lives.

Similarly, a volunteer mechanic and lifeboat operations manager at Kirkcudbright lifeboat station, William “John” Collins, has been awarded at a BEM for his dedication to the RNLI and the community in the town. He joined the station in 1991 as a mechanic, a role in which he continues to this day, alongside his duties as LOM. Outside of the RNLI, John is employed as the local school bus driver. During the pandemic, he extended that role to deliver essential food supplies around the area.

Of course, Scotland, with its long coastline and 790 islands, has a long tradition of life on the seas and, of course, facing the dangers that can be inherent in that, whether that is winter storms off the Atlantic, fishing boats in distress or leisure craft running into trouble, often with inexperienced people at the helm. Scotland is absolutely indebted to the RNLI, so if I may, and so that I do not miss any out, I will list the stations. They are, from the south-west: Portpatrick, Stranraer, Girvan, Troon, Largs—I will give the list to Hansard, so do not worry if I rush through it—Arran, Campbeltown, Tighnabruaich, Helensburgh, Islay, Oban, Tobermory, Mallaig, Barra, Kyle of Lochalsh, Portree, Leverburgh, Stornoway, Lochinver, Thurso, Wick, Longhope, Stromness, Kirkwall, Aith, Lerwick, Invergordon, Kessock, Buckie, Macduff, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Aberdeen, Stonehaven, Montrose, Arbroath, Broughty Ferry, Anstruther, Kinghorn, Queensferry, North Berwick, Dunbar and Eyemouth—and I nearly mentioned Berwick-upon-Tweed, but that is only half-Scottish, so I shall leave it out.

We are also indebted to the independent and inshore rescue services, including at Dornoch, as well as the Glasgow Humane Society, Loch Lomond, Nith and the Moray Inshore Rescue Organisation, which I am delighted the hon. Member for Moray mentioned. Obviously, a lot of assistance, or co-ordination, goes to the RNLI through the Coastguard Agency. The coastguard is also 200 years old.

I want to make one point as I conclude, although I do not want to stray too far from consensus. I want to talk about the channel, but briefly, as I appreciate that my speaking time is nearly up. Last year, a record 45,000 people succeeded in crossing the channel, and we know there have been tragedies and a huge number of rescues there. We have always called for and maintained that there should be a safe and legal route so that the coastguard and the RNLI are not put in the position of having each day to save lives in the busiest shipping lane in the world.

Some of the rhetoric deployed has been deplorable, and Nigel Farage compared the work of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and of the RNLI to

“a taxi service for illegal trafficking gangs”.

On the back of that, the RNLI received the most donations in its history in response to a single event—more than £200,000.

We can all castigate such rhetoric, which is deployed by some, but I want to finish on a note of consensus. I say thank you to all who are involved in the RNLI and those who co-ordinate our search and rescue services. In particular, I pay tribute to all those who sadly lost their lives in attempting to rescue others on our behalf.