Aleppo

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Richard Drax

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not want to get drawn into discussing the hon. Lady’s latter point, which is an unhelpful comparison. The will of the House has been made clear and the Executive are looking seriously at what we can do to support the concept of airdrops, but they involve all the dangers and caveats that have been discussed. We take the lead from the United Nations personnel who are on the ground. If we are to do this in a neutral manner, it must be done through the UN. If we step in and start doing things ourselves, our involvement in the Syria campaign will take on a very different perspective, for which we would need the permission and support of this House.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and point out that the airdrops that are being pushed by many in this House come with huge risks. Does the Minister, who is in a difficult situation, agree that if they are to be done unilaterally we would inevitably need aircraft to deliver, fighter cover above, and helicopters and special forces to pick crews up if they get downed and wounded? We risk the awful prospect of seeing our service personnel being dragged through the streets or killed in some horrific manner by people down there who are behaving like barbarians. Does the Minister agree that there is a lot of concern?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend and Dorset neighbour spells out some of the intricacies involved in airdrops. It is not simply about the Hercules transport or C-17 aircraft that would provide that; it is about the air cover required, the emergency operations in case the pilots have to bail out and the rescue missions that may have to take place. We are also left facing the stark challenge of hostages being taken. All those factors need to be taken into consideration, from an operational perspective, in deciding on the best method of getting our aid to where we want it to go. As I say, the UN conducts airdrops, but only when it has clear permission from the Syrian regime.

Police

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Richard Drax

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called to speak in this debate, and it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). My tone will be as balanced as hers and that of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who made a very thoughtful speech, as he always does.

The Minister, who has kindly sat through all the speeches, has heard me speak before about the issue I am going to raise. I hope he does not raise his eyebrows to the roof and say, “Oh dear, here comes Drax again”, but I am afraid I am going to raise it anyway because my job is to stand up for my constituents and for my police force in Dorset, which does an outstanding job. I pay credit to the outgoing chief constable, Martin Baker, who has been replaced by an another outstanding chief constable, Debbie Simpson. They have both galvanised Dorset police. They have collaborated and they have saved: they have done everything they could in the years before this spending review came in and since. We are now down to the bone. I will be parochial in the sense that I will focus my comments on Dorset police and not the police nationally.

I am grateful to our new police and crime commissioner, Martyn Underhill, for a lot of the information that I am going to give—I say “a lot”, but it is not that much and I will not take long—and I concur with his views and concerns. First, it is only fair that I praise the brave men and women of Dorset police; everyone who has spoken has done likewise. We cannot overestimate the courage that these men and women continually show to keep us safe on the streets and at home. While we are all tucked up in bed, many of them are out patrolling the streets at night and tackling some pretty ferocious people while armed with not much more than a protective jacket and occasionally with a Taser if needed.

The comprehensive spending review indicated or demanded savings of 20%. As we have heard, savings across all forces in 2014-15 will be 3.3%. For Dorset, that means a loss of £3.1 million. As has also been mentioned, taking into account the top-slicing in such areas as the police innovation fund and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, Dorset must make savings of 4.8%, which equates to well over £4 million. The point for the Minister is that that will once again place Dorset at the bottom of the pile. I simply cannot repeat it enough. I shall say it again—at the bottom of the pile.

Last year, the formula funding per head in Dorset was the lowest in the land. The needs-based funding formula for policing, which is supposed to determine how much each area receives, has never been properly implemented. Since 2010, Dorset police has been short-changed to the tune of £11 million. In real terms, the figure is a lot more. Last year, Dorset lost more officers and staff in proportion to other forces across the country—a full 6%. During the entire period of the CSR, Dorset will have lost 400 posts.

Whenever I mention or hear the dreadful word “damping”, I cannot help thinking of that awful thing that creeps up from the floor, ruins the walls and costs people a fortune in redecorating their house, but that is the technical jargon. Under damping, each force faces the same reduction in core Government funding in 2014-15, which will exacerbate the inequities that already exist in Dorset.

Let me say to the Minister—if he will stop talking to his Whips—that this situation in Dorset simply cannot go on for ever. Because of its size, topography and population centres, Dorset faces unique police challenges. The county is almost evenly split, with one half living in a large conurbation, and the other half scattered across rural communities. The two halves require substantially different forms of policing. In addition, we have tourism and the night-time economy. I know that many other constituencies have them too, but I am proud to say that Dorset is one of the most beautiful counties in the country. We attract 14 million tourists every year. The thriving night-time economy has grown, as it has in so many other parts of the country, and it requires a significant police presence all year round. One would have thought that those two aspects would be included in a common-sense funding formula, but they are not.

I was a journalist at the BBC in Dorset for some 10 years and I have spoken—often off the record—to the police wearing a different hat. From talking to officers on a busy Friday night, I know that they are very thin on the ground. There is no doubt about that. Although crime is down, which I of course welcome, the reality away from this place—we are sitting very comfortably on green Benches—is that brave men and women are out there at 3 o’clock in the morning facing the thousands of people, who are often out of control and drunk, coming out of nightclubs and bars. There are very few officers to tackle those thousands of people.

Over the years, I have been told that because there are so few police officers, they dare not get too involved in many incidents, as that would require two or three officers to go back to the cells, and they simply cannot afford to reduce their numbers on the ground. The logical conclusion is that a situation must get very bad before the police will physically intervene, because they do not have the numbers to deal with it. That is not their fault; in such situations, they simply do not have the numbers on the ground.

The formula originally evolved on the basis of a reasonably even level of council tax across the counties and parity in the policing that was delivered. It no longer works. It is perhaps blindingly obvious that a formula that gives one force 80% of its money from central Government and others, such as Dorset, less than half does not stand up to scrutiny.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I apologise for joining the debate late, Madam Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the effect of the manning formula in places such as our constituencies in Dorset. Does he agree that the manning formula needs to be reconsidered to take account of the number of visitors who come to a place? Bournemouth swells by 15,000 or 20,000 people on a Friday night. That is not taken into consideration, and it places excess pressure on the limited number of police.

[Richard Drax]

I concur entirely with my hon. Friend. Because there is a demand for more officers at busy times, such as weekends, those officers are not available on other days of the week. Although there is less crime during the day and in the week, it is equally important that police officers are seen at those times.

Council tax can no longer be increased to pay for grant shortfalls. The recent changes by the Department for Communities and Local Government capped increases at 2%. Due to the shortfall in moneys from central Government, Dorset police has set its precept at 1.96% for 2014-15. Surveys of the public show that they generally support that. Mr Underhill and the chief constable are trying to maintain a balance between sustaining a viable police force and not overburdening the taxpayer. The rise will cover essential expenditure, including on 16 extra police officers, seven rural community vehicles, 300 body-worn cameras and a campaign to make people more aware of cybercrime.

The right hon. Member for Leicester East mentioned technology. Although everyone in this House recognises the value of technology, I have some advice for the Minister. I have many friends in the armed services who went to Iraq. There was a huge reliance on the technology that we and the Americans had, but there was no intelligence from people on the ground or “human int.”, as it is called. The result is there for all to see. The west did not understand what was happening on the ground or the consequences of invading a country such as Iraq.

I am sure that there is no intention to invade Dorset, but I draw the comparison because human int. is the key to a successful police force and, more importantly, to tackling crime. Nothing beats seeing police officers on the ground in our constituencies. It happens too rarely, but through no fault of the officers. In the Army, we patrolled around Northern Ireland in groups of 12, day and night. Like police officers, my soldiers brought back valuable information about what they had seen or heard and about what the local hoods were doing, who they were with, what pubs they were visiting and whether they were happy or sad. Such information is crucial in everyday policing.

Unlike the rest of local government, which received a two-year settlement, the police have a provisional finance settlement only for 2014-15. We thought that that would be the last year of savings. I am concerned that they are now likely to continue until 2017-18. It is estimated that Dorset will have to make savings of 3.7% in 2015-16 and 3.5% in each of the following two years, so annual funding will fall from £114.3 million last year to £108.7 million in 2017-18.

The future is bleak in Dorset. I do not like to be negative because I am an optimist. Dorset police is doing everything that it can, but we have been at the bottom of the pile for a long time and the funding formula is grossly unfair to us. Dorset police has identified potentially serious funding problems in 2016-17. Mr Underhill arrived in post and immediately had to face savings of £10 million. He described Dorset police as

“already stripped to the bone.”

Crime figures have fallen nationally and I welcome that—we all do—but calls for assistance and the number of incidents have risen. Despite those pressures, Dorset police has still earned one of the highest levels of public confidence of any police force in the country. But, Minister, enough is enough. For too long, Dorset police has been expected to do more with less. Dorset residents pay the same as, or more than, everyone else in the country, yet they are rewarded with gratuitously low levels of funding for their police. It is to the force’s enduring credit that they have managed so well for so long on so little.

I do not necessarily like speaking so bluntly to the Minister, and certainly not from the Government Benches, but I feel that I have no choice because the situation is so concerning. Dorset police has done all it can, and it continues to look at every possible avenue to provide a better service and better value for money. I agree, in part, with the phrase “value for money”, but if that comes at the cost of losing what I and my constituents want, which is to see police officers on the beat doing the job we want them to do, perhaps value for money should be looked at in a different way. Finally, I ask the Minister to rectify our situation now, before it is too late.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Richard Drax

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

I agree. I look forward to hearing whether that point is dealt with in the winding-up speeches.

Many hon. Members have said that wars have changed and perhaps there is no need for battalions of infantry. My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said that there was no longer a need for the number of battalions that we used to have. May I give three examples where boots on the ground would be needed, quite apart from any conventional war that we might have to fight? First, God forbid that the Northern Ireland troubles ever rose from the ashes again. We had 32,500 men and women in Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles. With a professional Army of 82,000 men—a large majority of whom are not bayonets, to use the Army lingo; many are back-up forces—we would be pushed to man that one commitment.

Secondly, the Falklands has been mentioned so many times. Baroness Thatcher was looking at cutting our armed forces just before the war broke out—I think my historical facts are right—and, as I understand it, afterwards she said, “Never again am I going to take our armed forces for granted.” Thirdly, for a big evacuation, potentially from a friendly country—let us say Kenya—we would need, without aircraft carriers, boots on the ground to secure an area around which our citizens could be extracted. This takes huge resources, immediate resources, professional resources.

I say to all those who work in the reserves, alongside whom I have worked, that I have enormous respect for them. This is not a question of denigrating the reservists. I have a huge amount of respect for them all and thank them from the bottom of my heart, as does the nation, for what they do. All I am saying is that the ratio of 70:30 should be reviewed and it should be 90:10 instead. Finally, my military sources tell me that senior officers say one thing in public, but that a very different message is given in private.

[Mr Ellwood]

It is a pleasure to participate in this important debate. I wish we had more such debates in the House of Commons and more regularly. It is a pleasure to follow my neighbour down in Dorset, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), as it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), whom I congratulate on his Defence Committee appointment, and my hon. Friends the Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous).

This has been a powerful debate. I congratulate, as others have done, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)—he says not to do so, but I will anyway—on the work that he has done. I congratulate also General Sir Graeme Lamb, with whom I know my hon. Friend worked closely in his work on the armed forces. New clause 1 is welcome, providing for an annual independent assessment of what the reserves are doing and, I hope, for an annual debate in the House on the reserve forces as we move forward.

New clause 3 is a little mischievous. It calls for further implementation of the plans to be halted, which means that things stop and we drop tools at this point. We do not know the time scale. That has not been clarified by the debate. I was a little concerned when my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said that we should not be doing this in the first place if it is the wish of the House to go against the Government. That really worries me, because what is the genesis of new clause 3?

I am also concerned about Labour’s position. Labour Members were supportive on Second Reading and in the Committee, on which I served, but today they suddenly changed their tune. On their watch the MOD had to be put in special measures, because they burnt a £38 billion black hole in the budget.

Dorset Police (Funding)

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Richard Drax

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Good morning, Mr Dobbin. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today and to see the Minister in his place. He and I have communicated on several occasions on this subject. He has been extremely accommodating to date, and I am sure that our good relationship will continue despite what I have to say this morning. I plan to speak for no more than 15 minutes to give him time to reply and to take some interventions. I am sure that my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) will intervene and make points, and I am happy to take their interventions.

Let me praise and thank Dorset police and all its officers who serve with great distinction and honour and who keep the residents of Dorset safe. Dorset police force is one of the best in the country; I have met many of its officers and am impressed by their devotion to duty and their dedication. We are all extremely grateful to them for what they do.

Dorset is now the lowest centrally funded police force out of the 43 in England and Wales. While some forces receive three quarters of their grant from central Government, Dorset receives less than half. The rest of the burden is placed on the local taxpayer, and that inequity is repeated year after year and will worsen when a further £1.9 million is lost in so-called formula damping.

The 2013-14 grant settlement has seen Dorset receive less funding than the formula calculates as appropriate. Had the formula been followed, we would have had an additional £16 million to spend this year alone, which equates to nearly 850 more police officers on the beat at today’s starting salary of £19,000 a year. The reality is that, through cuts, we have lost an astonishing 340 officers since 2007, which is 23% of our total officer strength. By 2018, anticipated further cuts suggest that we will lose 468 warranted police officers, which is 31% of our numbers. That is equivalent to losing every single officer in Weymouth, Portland, Dorchester, Bridport, Lyme Regis, Sherborne, Blandford, Shaftesbury, Gillingham, Sturminster Newton and Beaminster—it sounds a bit like a train journey I have been on a few times. On the urban side of our county, cutting 468 officers would mean losing every officer in Bournemouth and Christchurch and some of those in Poole.

Proportionally, Dorset has lost the highest number of police officers and staff in the country. Back-office functions are already pared to the bone; that was done by the previous chief constable who did a wonderful job in meeting Government expectations and targets. None the less, Dorset police are expected to do more with less. To their great credit, they have one of the highest levels of public confidence in the country, but they will not be able to sustain that because they face unique policing challenges, which are increasing every year.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I am reluctant to ask my hon. Friend to give way because he is making such a powerful case. May I join him in congratulating the emergency services—not just the police but the fire and ambulance services—for the work that they do in Dorset? He is right to say that Dorset is not only one of the best performing constabularies in the country, but one of the worst funded. Does he agree that one aspect of this damping formula is that it does not include visitors or tourism? Places such as Bournemouth and his constituency have an influx of people coming in, giving police extra work to do, which then hinders them from taking responsibility for the residents, and that concerns police.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will come to it later on. Dorset gets no recognition for the fact that it receives 14 million visitors a year.

Evenly split between a large conurbation on one side and a scattering of rural communities on the other, the “two Dorsets” demand very different styles of policing. Rural policing involves greater distances and time and, therefore, costs, and the night-time economy in our seaside towns, particularly when summer numbers peak due to tourism, demands a significant police presence. That is an area of great concern as stretched resources have to be targeted at weekend trouble spots, leaving the rest of the county with minimal cover. Resources are stretched even further to cope with the 14 million visitors who come to Dorset each year. Added to that, we have thriving sea ports and a busy international airport. None of those factors is recognised in the police funding allocation, which, by 2018, will allow us barely to fund 1,000 officers to police the lot.

Our police and crime commissioner, Martyn Underhill, has fought valiantly for increased funding and continues to do so. As he says:

“We are the lowest funded force and have seen the worst cuts. This is wrong. I will continue to fight this.”

However, in the absence of any new funding, he is obliged to look at sponsorship, which is anathema to most police officers and to me. It has been tried elsewhere in the Met, but there is naturally great concern about the independence of the police when sponsors’ names are emblazoned on every police vehicle, station and letterhead. Admittedly, the rules are strict: sponsorship must not amount to more than 1% of a force’s total income; none of the statutory functions of the force should depend on the sponsorship; and sponsors may not interfere with police duties.

However, the potential for conflict of interest, or at least a perception of conflict of interest, is evident. I should like, if I may, to inject a note of levity here. In the future, when someone asks, why do all police officers look so young these days, the answer will be, because they use Camay! I inject a note of humour, Mr Dobbin, but I think it makes the point rather well. Policing is a serious matter, and this sponsorship business does not bode well. If the police lose their independence through sponsorship deals, can privatisation be far away? Will the Minister tell us whether there are any plans to privatise the police?

Surprisingly, the Treasury seemed less embarrassed than perhaps it should have been over the news of the Dorset police sponsorships. It may even be policy. Chief Inspector Tom Winsor, in a recent speech to the Royal United Services Institute, said:

“The provision of services to police forces by private sector organisations, and agencies and organisations in the public sector, is likely to increase markedly as efficiencies and economies have to be found.”

Whether or not sponsorship is used—and I hope it is not—the funding formula remains profoundly flawed. Its original purpose, which is to achieve a reasonable balance across counties in police service delivered and council tax paid, manifestly no longer works.

Along with Dorset police, I welcome the review of the police funding formula, which I understand from my conversations with the Minister is due in September. Police treasurers met the Home Office yesterday as the first stage in that review. As we are on this subject, may I, on behalf of our police and crime commissioner Martyn Underhill, remind the Minister of the undertaking that he gave him at their meeting on 15 May? In a significant change to the Government’s position, the Minister agreed that PCCs can now be involved in the review, and several will be invited to join the table. As the greatest losers in the funding settlement nationally, and one of the best performers despite it, Dorset should be represented. Mr Underhill would be a worthy representative and if the Minister will kindly give some kind of acknowledgement when he responds, both Mr Underhill and I would be grateful.

Portland Search and Rescue Helicopter

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Richard Drax

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

This campaign is not just about one MP. Other hon. Members are here for the debate and they are equally concerned about the future of Portland’s search and rescue helicopter. We represent tens of thousands of people along the south coast who are worried, many of whom have campaigned tirelessly in the past months to help me. This is a team effort and I pay tribute to, and thank, all who have contributed to the battle to save our helicopter. It would be negligent of me not to pay special tribute to all crews of search and rescue helicopters in the United Kingdom, and in particular to ours in South Dorset.

I will begin by telling a story about a fishing boat called the Purbeck Isle. Sadly, it sank recently and we lost three young fishermen. The search went on for three days non-stop and could only be carried out effectively by helicopter because the search area was so huge. The helicopters had to refuel a number of times. If it were not for the Portland base, they would have had to fly some 21 to 25 minutes to Lee-on-the-Solent before refuelling and coming back. That would have meant being away from the search area for at least an hour. The current water temperature in most of the United Kingdom means that people can survive for about 10 minutes before they become unconscious, and 30 minutes before their core is so cold they die—those are the maximum times.

I remind the House that the initial funding for the helicopter came from the private finance initiative, which was cancelled by the coalition Government in February 2011.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he has done, and I join him in supporting all the crews who work so tirelessly to keep our seas safe. Does he agree that the mess the previous Government made of that PFI deal—the fact that decisions were not made then—is why we are confronted with this awful situation today?

[Richard Drax]

I agree with my hon. Friend to a certain extent, but when there was an earlier attempt to remove the helicopter, my predecessor was able to keep it because of PFI. In those days the Government were able to throw more taxpayers’ money at retaining it. Sadly, I am not in that position. The proposal has been put out to contract under the Official Journal of the European Union, which states certain key user requirements. As long as those requirements are met—at least theoretically, and that is the point—the Department for Transport assumed that no consultation was necessary. The previous Secretary of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), wrote to me and said that no consultation was necessary because she was “improving the service”. That presumption was criticised by me and many others. It has now been criticised strongly by the Select Committee on Transport, which has called on the Government to rethink their proposal.

The Portland helicopter operates in one of the busiest areas in the UK, and 25% of all coastguard call-outs come from there. It is illogical to close a base in the middle of all the action and rely on those further away. Cover should surely be provided close to where it is needed. Portland is only a 12-hour base, yet it compares favourably with its 24-hour neighbours—Solent, Culdrose and Chivenor. In 2011, the call-outs were: Portland 194; Solent 210; Culdrose 249; and Chivenor 272. Its helicopter is being called out as much as helicopters at the 24-hour stations.

Furthermore, the costings were wrong. When I first got involved, the Secretary of State assumed that the Portland base cost about £9 million a year to run. It does not. It is a 12-hour base and costs between £4 million and £5 million. If the Government think they will save money by closing the base, let me tell them that the money spent on diving casualties and flood rescues this year alone would pay for multiple helicopters. Portland costs half the amount of other bases and does almost the same number of taskings. That important point bears repeating.

The flying times were also wrong, and this relates to what the then Secretary of State was told by her advisers. The flying time from Culdrose to Portland is 48 to 54 minutes. If we add 15 minutes—the key user requirement to get the helicopter off the ground—we are looking at about 63 minutes. The flying time from Solent to Portland is between 21 and 25 minutes, plus the 15 minutes, which makes 36 minutes. The flying time from Chivenor to Portland is 37 minutes, plus the 15 minutes, which makes 52 minutes. That is on the basis that the air is still, conditions are perfect and no wind is blowing. As we all know, helicopters are not called out to rescue people unless something has happened—normally in stormy weather. In the sea, a person has 10 minutes before they are unconscious—that is the maximum in current sea temperatures—and 30 minutes before their core temperature drops and they are dead. Not one of the proposed helicopter bases would meet that time. All the people in the water—children, mothers, grannies, whoever—would be dead.

The other helicopters—at the three other bases I have mentioned—are as busy as ours. The point I have made repeatedly to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) is that one helicopter can only be in one place at any one time—however new, however fast, it can only be in one place at any one time. So if the Lee-on-the-Solent helicopter, and we will have to rely on that, is called to the east of its basing area, we can add to the 21—or 36—minutes at least another half hour or even an hour because that is how long it will take to get back to its base, having completed its task, to refuel and to come to us. And the people in the water? They would be dead.

On concurrent call-outs—when the other helicopters are in the air at the same time as ours—I have documentation proving that, in the past 14 months, the Portland helicopter responded to 21 incidents at the same time as the Solent helicopter. My helpful and moderate letter from the Under-Secretary, dated 17 December, includes a table on tasking concurrency. It lists the call-outs for Lee, Portland and Chivenor in 2009, 2010 and 2011. According to these figures, tasking concurrency happened three times in 2009, once in 2010 and once in 2011. Why, then, do we have other figures stating that on 21 occasions the helicopter at Lee-on-the-Solent was in the air and doing a task at the same time as the Portland helicopter? Something is seriously wrong, and I urge Ministers to look at the modelling, which I believe is fatally flawed. Someone somewhere has got their maths wrong.

Over the past 10 months, 25 out of the 32 transfers to Dorset county hospitals were so life threatening that the Civil Aviation Authority regulations were waived so that the helicopter could land at the hospital. According to Department for Transport figures, every road death, which equates to a water death—it is the nearest we have got—costs £1.6 million. On the basis of those figures, we save about £40 million by having the helicopter at Portland. If the Government needed any lessons on saving money, that is a pretty stark example.

Sadly, all this is being compounded by the proposals to close the maritime rescue co-ordination centre. They, too, are criticised by the Select Committee. The local resilience forum is particularly concerned. The Government said there would be no cuts to front-line services. I wonder what these are: no emergency towing vessels in England or Wales; no offshore firefighting capability, because the marine instant response group was withdrawn; a proposal that more than 50% of the co-ordination centres should go; and two helicopters going—ours and another—reducing the number of bases from 12 to 10. If these are not front-line services, I would love to know what the definition of a front-line service is, because to me that is the very coal face that the search and rescue capability depends on.

It is not just search and rescue that our Portland helicopter is involved in. It also works with the police and the ambulance service—yes, we have a charitable air ambulance, as do many counties, but it is small and does not have a winch. Without a winch, it can land only at certain places, so on many occasions the Portland search and rescue helicopter is called to help. The air base played a major role at the Olympics—TV companies, VIPs, business; you name it, it was used. Then there are pan and mayday alerts, and let us not forget the Channel Islands, which are also in the Portland helicopter’s area of responsibility.

I would like to thank the Under-Secretary, —he is not the Minister currently sitting on the Front Bench; it is hard to track the right Minister down when trying to fight one’s case—for his letter. To be fair, he has seen me and listened to me, and when he got his facts wrong about the timing from Culdrose to Portland—he initially thought it was 21 minutes, until I said, “By Concorde, yes,”—he wrote a helpful letter saying that the flying time is actually 48 minutes. These are fairly serious errors.

Those on the Front Bench are very intelligent, capable men and women, but I urge them please to come down to Dorset and listen to those involved in search and rescue along our coast. I am a former soldier, and I cannot think of any major decision where one would not appreciate what one was about to do beforehand. It is military training; it is civilian training; it is what we all do—we make an appreciation. To do that we must go on a reconnaissance mission; and to do that we need to go up front as a commanding officer and look over the land that we are about to move over or perhaps the hill that we are going to attack. We do not just sit there in our bunker, look out and say, “Onwards men! There’s the hill! Go and take it! I’m having some breakfast”—and off they go and they get slaughtered. That is what happened in the first world war.

It is that important. I cannot request enough—it must be at least three, four or five times now—that someone comes down to Dorset and listens to those intimately involved. I do not pour scorn on civil servants—they have a very important role to play—but sitting back in Whitehall pressing computer buttons, playing with their modelling and making pretty circles on maps is not really the way to come to a logical conclusion. If someone came down to Dorset and listened to people—this is another thing that really appals me—they would find that they are frightened to speak their minds. Why is that? Because if they do, they will lose their jobs. Is that not unbelievable? In this democracy of ours, in which millions have died to allow me to stand here and speak, the people who should be giving the Government the proper advice that they need are too frightened to do so, because if they do, they will lose their jobs. That is utterly outrageous.

Let us for once, as a Government, stand up and start leading. I say this: “Come down and listen. Listen, and listen. Do not talk; you can do that when you get back to your office. Listen, and I am convinced that once you have done that, Ministers will change their minds, or at least will start thinking about the whole process again.”

In a letter to the Government, the Transport Select Committee said:

“There are understandable concerns that the withdrawal of these bases will lead to…increased fatalities”.

The Under-Secretary took the view that that was entirely different from saying that lives would be lost. I have to disagree: temperate language was rightly used to a Government Department by a responsible and highly influential Select Committee.