RAF Centenary

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the best birthday present that any service can have is probably a little bit more cash. I am sure that the Chief of the Air Staff would very much echo that.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I hope that I am not interrupting the Secretary of State in order to mention something that he is going to come to in his speech. One of the critical elements of defending this country is our rapid reaction force. Every day, that force stands on high alert for incursions into British airspace—both of adversaries and of civilian flights that might have been taken over by terrorists. It is the rapid reaction force that protects our skies across the UK every day.

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct to state that the RAF is always vigilant. It is always ready to act. It is always ready to respond. Within literally a few minutes of a warning, it is up in the air defending our skies and dealing with these threats. That sense of protecting our skies has been a theme of the Royal Air Force throughout its 100-year history.

It is both humbling and inspiring to meet the extraordinary men and women who are doing this—to see their commitment, their passion and their dedication to their duty and the service that they are part of. We in this House must always do everything we can to protect them and to make sure that they always have the very best, much as the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), a fellow member of the Defence Committee, and the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).

I speak as chair of the all-party group on the Royal Air Force, an alumnus of the armed forces parliamentary scheme with the RAF, chair of the all-party group on reserves and cadets forces, about which we have heard a lot, and, very proudly, co-chair, with former Air Chief Marshal Lord Stirrup, of the Royal Air Forces Association parliamentary branch here in Westminster.

We have heard a lot about this year being the 100th anniversary of the RAF, but we have also been celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first world war. It is coming to an end, but I urge people if they have time to pop down to Porthcawl and see the fantastic display both commemorating the events of the first world war and showing the connections of Porthcawl and south Wales to the RAF.

I have a poster in my office that was put out in the first world war encouraging people to join the new Air Force. It is a wonderful inducement to join, saying, “If you volunteer to join, you will not be forced against your will to join the Army or the Navy.” I can see people thronging to join up on that basis alone.

We heard early on about the RAF being formed on 1 April 1918, with the merging of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. That partnership endures and is still important today, and those of us who are following events on the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier can see how vital that synergy continues to be through to today.

Right at the start, the RAF was a service that embraced new technology and techniques, and it has been that way ever since. The new air service fought all over and in every aspect of the battlefields of the first world war, providing invaluable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability, as well as carrying out what we all know in terms of its bombing missions, and that was vital to the eventual victory.

After the war, innovation moved into civilian life. A department of civil aviation was created within the Air Ministry to regulate aviation in the UK in 1919, the same year that two RAF officers, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic ocean, a seemingly impossible task.

During the interwar years, the RAF began its long tradition of training apprentices in the skills of aircraft engineering and maintenance, setting them up for great careers both in the service and in the growing aircraft industry, which was vital for the regeneration of the UK economy. During those interwar years, the RAF became a true national institution. With the outbreak of the second world war, the RAF once again stepped up to defend the country; it fought valiantly, defending our skies and our shores from invasion.

I want to talk about two things. The first of them is the way the RAF has always been willing to absorb people from across the world. The RAF’s No. 145 Squadron consisted of men from Belgium, Australia, Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Trinidad, Poland, the US, Canada and South Africa. The fantastic Air Transport Auxiliary consisted of 166 women pilots who often flew a plane after getting just 15 minutes to read a manual. They had no navigation capability; they literally had maps on their laps and navigated themselves around the country. But it attracted pilots from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the US, Poland and the Netherlands, again coming to Britain to fight on our side, but coming to Britain also because of the chance to fly with the RAF.

Since I have been chair of the all-party group, we have taken to having a battle of Britain dinner. I want to tell Members about the first of them, because it was one of the most moving experiences I have had in this House. I asked those pilots and aircrew who were with us if they would each give us just three minutes of their memories. The first man said, “I want to thank the merchant navy. Without the merchant navy and their bravery, we couldn’t have flown. So that is my memory: the death of all those men in the merchant navy.” Everybody was rocked.

Then the second man stood, and he said, “I want to thank the French civilians. My plane came down and I walked for two days. I did not know where the heck I was, and eventually in desperation, I knocked at a door and a family took me in. They hid me; at risk to their own lives, they fed me, they dealt with my wounds, and then they moved me from family friend to family friend until I actually made it to Portugal. And I got back, and I had the chance to fly again.”

The whole history of the RAF is about amazing people. I cannot tell hon. Members how wonderful everyone from the RAF I have ever worked with has been and how willing and open to new ideas and innovation they are.

During the cold war, the RAF played a critical role in keeping us safe. We tend to dismiss the cold war now, but it was the deterrence represented by the RAF that kept us safe. Because people knew the risk of challenging the Royal Air Force, the cold war remained a cold war and never became a hot war. Even today, the RAF remains one of the world’s most capable and respected air forces. Its fighter capability and its intelligence gathering are huge.

During its first 100 years, the RAF has shown the spirit and invaluable service that our air force provides to this country, not only in defending our skies but in innovating, adapting and improving and in making use of new technology in combination with the skill and professionalism of its servicemen and women to create a national institution that we are all rightly proud of. That challenge continues and faces us every day.

The Secretary of State talked about Carbonite-2, the satellite capability launched recently by the RAF, along with its range of sensors and ground stations. Carbonite-2 is huge by comparison with some satellites that we see nowadays. It is about the size of a washing machine, but its telescope and high-definition video recording will provide critical information for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance—ISR—purposes. That information will be sent into the cockpits of our fighter jets before we know it.

In 2017, I presented a report to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on “The Space Domain and Allied Defence”, in which I said:

“NATO needs a whole-of-alliance approach to protect its interests in space to enhance resilience and deter any threat to its space-based capabilities.”

I am very proud that the RAF takes on that challenge.

[Jim Shannon]

It would be remiss of us here in the House not to record our congratulations to the hon. Lady on becoming President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. We are all greatly encouraged by her elevation to that position, and we wish her well.

[Mrs Moon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments.

We have a problem within the NATO alliance, however. At the moment, there are just six postings in NATO, in six different departments, that are designated as space operational positions. That is not good enough. We must all welcome the development of the bi-strategic command space working group, which has recommended the creation of a NATO space operational centre of excellence to offer expertise and experience that will benefit nations across the alliance. We are fortunate here in the UK, because we have a very capable space technology community. Not everyone is so advanced in that field, and we need to spread that expertise.

NATO’s joint air power strategy is dependent on national space-based capabilities to support air, maritime, land and cyber domains, and for early warning, ISR, communications, positioning, navigation and timing information. We are at a time when the treaties and regulatory and legal frameworks relating to space will have to change. We have always argued that space should not be weaponised, but the threats that are coming our way indicate that other countries will not abide by the existing rules, and we need to be ready to face those threats.

The Secretary of State talked about the RAF already being engaged in 15 missions across 22 countries, the majority of which are alliance missions. We all have a responsibility to ensure that they have the money, the personnel, the training and the best technology to ensure that the RAF’s edge is maintained and that its ability to command the air environment continues.

One of the most amazing things about being a member of the Defence Committee is that we have the capacity to drill down into areas that other people do not always understand. An example would be the RAF rules of engagement. When I was doing a report on behalf of the Committee on remotely piloted air systems—known as drones to the rest of the world—it was fascinating to see the rigorous nature of the rules of engagement and of the tests that everyone going in to pilot a drone in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world is required to go through before they can go on duty. It was fascinating to see the checks and balances involved, and the requirement to ensure the safety of civilians, which was central to everyone’s thinking. I do not think that we speak enough about that. We do not tell our public how high the level of integrity is of the people who serve this country, how that manifests itself day after day and how respected it is around the world.

I want briefly to mention the importance of the defence industry. The combat air sector has contributed 80% of the total defence exports over the past 10 years. It has an annual turnover of £6 billion and supports 18,000 skilled jobs. That vast network is part of the RAF legacy and an offshoot of this national institution.

I cannot finish without speaking about the people of the RAF. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and I share a great friend. When I became the chair of the RAF all-party parliamentary group, a liaison officer was appointed by the Ministry of Defence to ensure that I understood things and perhaps that I behaved myself—he did not do very well at that—as well as to ensure that I was accurate in the things that I said and did. That man was Wing Commander Philip Lamb. After being a parliamentary liaison officer, he went on to be the station commander at St Mawgan and then to become our defence attaché in Sweden. It was there that he became ill. On the day—in fact, at the very minute—that I was told I was to be the next President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, a text appeared on my phone. I opened it, and it told me that Philip had died. Philip was a man who, like so many in the RAF, served his country with distinction, commitment and integrity. Like so many others, he was a man who let the world know that the RAF still attracted the best people. They are people who really do go through adversity to the stars in protecting this country.