Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team

Lord Astor of Hever Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate. I congratulate him on the excellent work he does as patron of the Tavistock team of Dartmoor Search and Rescue.

My first experience of Dartmoor goes back to the spring of 1966 when, as a young Army officer cadet on our final training exercise, I spent a fortnight on the moor and experienced it at its most severe—snow, rain, fog and bitter cold. A year later, two young officer cadets ran into trouble on Dartmoor. A rescue effort was attempted but difficult terrain and impending darkness, coupled with technical mishaps and human error, ultimately led to failure and the two young cadets, sadly, lost their lives.

As a result of that tragedy, the Dartmoor Rescue Group was founded, and I pay tribute to it for its wonderful work. Its members head off into the wind, the rain and the snow to help, among others, lost school groups, injured walkers, missing children and people with dementia. I have grown to respect their work. They are real lifesavers, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, said, everybody involved is an unpaid volunteer.

My sister lives close to Dartmoor and I know only too well that Dartmoor’s tors, valleys, rivers and forests can be forbidding and dangerous places, especially in bad weather and after dark. Search and rescue operations can be difficult, and at times dangerous, to both rescuers and those being rescued. As the noble Lord said, teams spend a great deal of time and effort training in a wide range of appropriate skills.

One of the main problems they experience is a lack of awareness by the public of the quickly changing weather conditions of Dartmoor. It is easy to get lost if you are not familiar with the moorland and its conditions. Stories are legion of people setting off in totally inappropriate clothing and footwear. The Dartmoor search and rescue team does a very good job in educating schools, scouts and other community groups. However, most of the problems arise with tourists unaware of the potentially treacherous conditions.

Does my noble friend believe that more can be done to warn the visiting public of the huge risks they run by setting off on to the moor unprepared, potentially risking their own and other people’s lives? The Army, and Armed Forces generally, have learned lessons since the earlier deaths. Their professionalism means that they no longer lose young officer cadets or any other service men or women.

I have one further question for my noble friend. I apologise for not giving her warning, and would be very happy to receive a letter. I understand that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution is trialling drones to help casualties at sea. The RNLI put out an open call to the drone industry back in November, asking companies to look at ways that drones could be integrated into its systems. Does my noble friend believe that drones and their technologies could also help search and rescue capabilities more generally?