Mull of Kintyre Review

Malcolm Rifkind Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I am extremely grateful for what the shadow Secretary of State has said and the tone in which he presented it to the House.

When we look at the experience under previous Secretaries of State, we see that the inquiries that took place were perhaps not quite focusing on the correct point. In Lord Philip’s inquiry, he very quickly, with his team, went to the point of the matter on a legal basis—that is, as the shadow Secretary of State has said, they grasped that attributing gross negligence could be done only if there was no doubt. This was not about establishing something beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the test that most of us would expect normally to be applied—it was an absolutely objective test. Perhaps in previous inquiries we were looking into the details and missing the main point.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a number of very reasonable questions. In answer to his specific question about how the matter was handled at the time, I refer him to paragraph 7.2.2 of the report, which says:

“We were told that Flt Lt Tapper telephoned his Deputy Flight Commander on the evening before the delivery of ZD576 to Northern Ireland expressing concern that some time had passed since his conversion training. He felt unprepared to fly the aircraft. He had attempted to persuade the tasking authority to spread the load between more than one aircraft, but his request had been refused.”

Yes, there will be questions of compensation arising. I spoke today to some of the families involved, but I did not feel that today was the appropriate time to be talking about money when there are very serious points of principle and we are opening up a very difficult emotional period for the families. However, we will undoubtedly take this forward in the usual way with those families.

As regards details appearing in the media, the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that very many of those were completely wrong. I suspect that people were making educated guesses that turned out to be not so educated.

Finally, neither Lord Philip nor his team criticised the initial board of inquiry. The problem came with the reviewing officers who attributed gross negligence when the board of inquiry had not come to a specific conclusion about who or what was to blame for the crash.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

As Secretary of State for Defence at the time of the Chinook accident, and having given evidence to the Philip inquiry, may I say that I am delighted and relieved that this decision has been announced by the Secretary of State? It is a decision that is right, that is necessary, and that is long overdue. As the Royal Air Force decided some years ago that it was not going to continue to try to assess questions of negligence in its own internal inquiries because that was much more appropriately a matter for the courts of law, is it not very sad that the RAF and, indeed, the Ministry of Defence, despite changing their own procedures and despite the mounting evidence from many authoritative inquiries, have chosen to resist for 16 long years the annulment of this injustice, which arose out of these very procedures?

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his thanks for the decision that has been made. It is right, I think, that the RAF took the decision that questions of negligence and blame should be set aside in order to try to get to the truth of the cause of any particular accidents. It is very regrettable that it has taken such a long time to get to the situation today. However, it is none the less a tribute to many Members in this House who have felt that an injustice was being done. It shows the House of Commons at its best when pressure from the House of Commons can cause an injustice to be overturned.