Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, for securing this debate. As he said in his speech, he has strong personal links to the Dartmoor Search and Rescue team, as patron of the Tavistock group, and is thus able to speak with considerable authority and first-hand experience about the role it plays and the work it does in contributing to public safety.

The Dartmoor rescue group comprises four teams and is sponsored by a number of organisations, including Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue, Devon and Cornwall Police and, interestingly, Dartmoor Brewery—whether it provides sustenance before, during or after missions is not entirely clear. The four teams are based in Ashburton, Okehampton, Tavistock and Plymouth. I do not want to digress too much, but movement between those locations would be improved for the group if the railway line between Okehampton and Plymouth was fully reopened.

The Dartmoor rescue group covers the 365 square miles of Dartmoor and beyond, and also works with the Cornwall and Exmoor teams. Group members are all volunteers, as has been said, but they are professionally trained in searching, navigation, casualty care, search dog handling and swift water rescues. The group started in 1968 and last year celebrated its 50th anniversary, when, among other activities, civic leaders throughout Devon joined members of the group for a special celebration. The group is affiliated to the Mountain Rescue Council.

The Cabinet Office, the Home Office and the devolved Administrations are responsible for ensuring the quality of preparedness for civil emergencies at the local government level and across central government. Within this, the police services are responsible for ensuring the response and co-ordination of land search and rescue, and the Cabinet Office is responsible for the framework for UK civil protection in accordance with the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, an Act I remember well since I made my maiden speech at its Second Reading—a maiden speech that had been forgotten even before I had finished delivering it. The tasking of adequate resources to respond to civil aeronautical and maritime search and rescue is the responsibility of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency through Her Majesty’s coastguard. However, search and rescue in this country relies on volunteers and voluntary organisations to save lives at sea and on land.

Such volunteers—I believe the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, gave the figure 3,500—give significant amounts of their time without payment and put their own safety, or indeed lives, at risk. By definition, search and rescue can involve going out in appalling conditions at the drop of a hat, in tough and dangerous terrain, at any time of the day or night, on any day of the year, in any season and for an unknown length of time to save those—to give two examples—who have been caught out by a sudden change in weather conditions and are inadequately prepared or to rescue those who have, either literally or metaphorically, got themselves in a hole and who may be lost, injured or vulnerable.

There were only nine days in 2017 without a mountain rescue call-out in England and Wales. On mountain rescue, the total number of operational hours was just under 100,000, or the equivalent of more than 50 people working full-time hours for a year. In 2017, 20% of incidents were more than four hours in duration and 5% took more than eight hours to complete.

In recent months, there have been a series of television programmes on the work of the lifeboat service, which showed in detail the variety of operations that service embraces and the calculated risks the volunteers undertake to rescue those in difficulty—all too often a difficulty that has arisen from stupidity or thoughtlessness rather than from bad luck or an unforeseen development.

For mountain rescue teams, the summer holidays are the busiest time, though at times of heavy snowfall I understand the teams can be asked to support local agencies by transporting medical staff to work and to patient visits.

The majority of voluntary search and rescue organisations are registered charities which rely heavily on donations and fundraising. During working hours, effective search and rescue response also relies on the willingness of employers to release employees who are search and rescue volunteers.

In the light of comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, could the Minister say whether the level of financial support from donations and fundraising activities continues to be sufficient to maintain and train effective search and rescue services—including equipment—throughout the country, and whether sufficient volunteers continue to come forward to staff these vital, life-saving operations? Have changes in the nature of employment made it more or less difficult for people in employment to get time off to be search and rescue volunteers during working hours?

I have never personally had to require the services of search and rescue, even though in my younger years I was a keen and regular walker. My wife and I first met over 45 years ago doing the Dales Way walk from Ilkley to Windermere, a walk we decided to repeat in 2017 before we got too old to do it again. From doing walks like that, one can appreciate how easy it is for something to go seriously wrong in challenging conditions. To know that help would be available from search and rescue volunteers is a source of considerable comfort.

I endorse the tributes paid by the noble Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Astor of Hever, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, to all those search and rescue volunteers who unflinchingly and unfailingly turn out to help and save the lives of so many, at not inconsiderable risk to themselves.