I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of coastguard search and rescue helicopter services.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Furniss. I am delighted to see the Minister in his place for a reprise of an issue I have raised a number of times over the years. The execution of the duties of the search and rescue helicopter base in Sumburgh, which is in Shetland in my constituency, has over the years been relatively unproblematic. The service, and those who provide it, are held in enormously high regard—and for good reason. There have been, over the years, a number of heroic incidents where the quality of the service, and the bravery of those who provide it, have been there for all to see. It has been quite exceptional, and that is the standard that local people have come to expect and will almost certainly continue to expect; but that does mean that, if there is ever any concern about the provision of these sorts of services, the response from the community will be much more trenchant.
I will start by raising an issue that has its roots back in 2023. It was a matter I raised in this House—in fact in this Chamber—on 22 November 2023. At that time, following the reletting of the contract for a second 10-year period to Bristow Helicopters, a memo was sent out to all Bristow staff indicating, amongst other things, that the response time for helicopters stationed at Sumburgh and at Stornoway—in the Northern and Western Isles—was to be increased from 15 minutes to 60 minutes. That is obviously concerning: for any coastal or island community, the search and rescue helicopter is another blue light service. It is a blue light service that any of us who rely on the sea for a living, or even just for transportation, may have to rely on at any time.
That memo only came into the public domain because a member of Bristow staff copied two pages of it and gave it to BBC Radio Shetland. It went into the public domain from there. As soon as it was in the public domain, there was a mass stampede for the hills by anybody who might be accountable for it. The Department for Transport and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency denied all knowledge of it, saying, “No, this was nothing to do with us.” It was all left firmly at the door of Bristow, which, it has to be said, was less than forthcoming at that point.
That led me, after some discussion and joint working with the then hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, to the Chamber on 22 November 2023. I say parenthetically that the current hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) has since contacted me to say that he cannot be here with us, but I know that he is engaged with this issue. I have spoken and corresponded with him about it on a number of occasions, and I know he shares my concerns about the handling of this.
I will not rehearse the arguments that were made in November 2023, but it will benefit the House and the Minister, when he responds, if I remind the House of what then Minister Guy Opperman said when responding to my half-hour debate. He said,
“I want to address the key point raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland in respect of the situation going from 15 to 60 minutes. That was supposed to be the situation going forward, but I can confirm that the Department for Transport has been informed by His Majesty’s Coastguard that it has begun an analysis of the SAR incident data compiled after the UKSAR2G procurement commenced. That work has begun and is ongoing, and obviously the results will be conveyed in the future to all Members who are particularly concerned by it—the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), who have raised this particular point in correspondence.
The analysis is in recognition of the fact that the UKSAR2G procurement was undertaken at a time of considerable societal and economic upheaval during the pandemic”.
So—surprise, surprise—the number of callouts had fallen during the pandemic and it was on that basis that the decision to raise the response time from 15 minutes to 60 minutes was made.
Let me say at this stage, before I go any further, that even if that data was reliable, I do not think that in itself is a legitimate basis on which to increase the call-out time. This issue is not all about the number of times the service is used; it is also about the circumstances and the conditions in which it is used. So, if this is some sort of calculation that says, “If we are only using it 10 times instead of 100, we don’t need to be out there quite as quickly,” I would say in response that for those 10 times that the service is needed to be out there, my goodness—the need is as great as it possibly can be.
In November 2023, the then Minister went on to say:
“There is no doubt, if one looks at the statistics—and I have the statistics—that on occasions, over the last few years, the numbers have clearly been potentially lower than they may be going forward.”—[Official Report, 22 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 126WH.]
He continued:
“I want to assure the House and the right hon. Gentleman that the UKSAR2G contract terms allow for a review of any area of the service against changes in demand, technical developments or innovations, which will be done periodically. The point is that that would have been done in any event. Should the analysis in this instance indicate that amendments to the new service are required in light of changes to the demand profile, then the Department for Transport can pursue those via the appropriate contractual mechanisms and approval processes.
The review will be undertaken at the end of this year going into next year”—
that was in 2023, going into 2024—
“at which time we will be happy to share the outcome with hon. Members. It will take many months, so it will not happen in the short term. I make the simple point that there will be no change to this service, in any event, for many years to come;”—
in fact, until the end of November 2026—
“as the title of the right hon. Gentleman’s debate on the Order Paper suggests, we are talking about the future provision. I can advise that all four current helicopter bases in Scotland will remain open, with additional fixed-wing capabilities and a seasonal base in north-west Scotland to provide additional enhancements on an ongoing basis.” —[Official Report, 22 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 127WH.]
Essentially, therefore, we have come here today to hear from the current Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane)—the outcome of that review. There were a number of occasions when we had video calls and telephone calls, with Bristow assuring us by saying, “Really, we understand now that maybe we did look at incomplete or inappropriate data. This is not going to be a problem.” I was greatly assured by that, but I am slightly less assured by the fact that we are now in January 2025 and we still do not know what the outcome of that review is.
If the Minister can tell us today that the review has been completed and that a 15-minute response time will continue to be provided, I will have nothing more to say on this matter for the moment. However, if we have to undertake a campaign in our community to save a service that is as important to us as this one, I would like to hear that now, rather than having to wait until November 2026 to hear it.
However, the issues around the response time are not the totality of my concerns about the SAR service; indeed, I fear that they are a symptom, rather than the disease. By that, I refer to the fact that this only came into the public domain because of a leak. It is something which clearly, as a provider of service under contract for the Government, should have had an element of public consultation before any decision of that sort was made.
The Minister will be aware that earlier this year pilots working for Bristow, which provides the service under the SAR contract, went on strike. They did so in the most responsible way possible, in a way designed to minimise the risk to life. The cover, though, it must be said, was still patchy and we were fortunate that the situation came to a head in the summer months rather than in the winter. Those pilots’ feeling that it was necessary to go on strike should be a major concern for the Department and for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. A few years ago it would have been unthinkable; earlier this year it felt inevitable.
The Minister knows that in recent years, Bristow was bought by a large American operator headquartered in Texas. What I have heard from those working for the company since then suggests that the purchase was the catalyst for a significant change of culture for the company and, more specifically, of concern for us as taxpayers, of the operation of the SAR contract. I have spoken with pilots and other staff at bases around the country, who tell me of a culture within the company that is now very different from the one that I first encountered and engaged with as a newly elected MP around 20 years ago. I hear of a management culture driven constantly by cost and efficiency, and some working within the company are concerned that it is at the expense of the highest possible standards of safety.
In years gone by, when I visited the base at Sumburgh I was generally able, with some notice, to go on to the base and meet and speak to more or less anybody that was on shift there. My most recent visit to the base was handled rather differently; senior management travelled from the south to “manage” my visit and the contact that I had with the crew at the base was very carefully managed. I was not oblivious to that; quite apart from anything else, I was fairly confident that, with Shetland being Shetland, I would hear any concerns there were by some other means, and so it has turned out.
The concerns were not just from Shetland. As a consequence of comments that I made that were reported at the time, I have heard concerns from bases, pilots and crews right around the coastline at other stations too. In Shetland and the Western Isles, I am told that the relocation of staff to the Isles is no longer to be expected or even encouraged. Consequently, crews are drawn in from elsewhere and the continuity of service is diminished. That must inevitably affect the way the service works— the familiarity of a crew with one another, when working in some of the most taxing conditions imaginable, is an important factor in how the service is delivered when it is most needed.
Shetland and the Western Isles are now regarded as spokes, rather than as hubs or standalone operations. Staff are expected to leave and work elsewhere in the country, providing different services. I am pleased to see that a more substantial amount will be provided for rescue services, going forward. I am sure that will be appreciated by the communities affected, but it must not come at the expense of the core service, which is search and rescue at sea.
Regarding core services, I sound a note of caution about the extended use of the SAR helicopter to supplement the air ambulance service on the islands. That use is not new, and in the moments of necessity it makes absolute sense for the SAR helicopter to get people to hospital on the Scottish mainland. However, I am increasingly concerned that the use is increasing in a significant way. In 2020, the number of call-outs—for the search and rescue helicopter to be provided effectively to the air ambulance service—was 25. But by the end of November 2024, it was 53. The concern must surely be that one day there will come a point where an ambulance flight is needed but the helicopter is deployed on a SAR mission, and the expectation of the ambulance provision and its availability will simply not be met. If this is to be something that is done—and I make no argument with it—surely it has to be done in a structured and strategic way. It cannot be allowed to develop in an ad hoc way.
I have spoken to one pilot who told me of his concern that crews are being put on station before, in his view—and he is a very experienced pilot—they are properly ready to be there. I have heard tell of winch operators undertaking live winch operations to decks after only five training operations. Previously, the number would have been at least twice that, with further training being done on the job under the supervision of more experienced crew.
The service also faces challenges that are not entirely within its control. For example, the availability of spare parts for the AgustaWestland AW189 is a potential source of difficulty. The move to the AW189 as it was explained to me made some sense, and I could see the inevitability of it, although reliance on a single aircraft model still raises concern about the resilience of the service should that single model be taken out of commission, as we all know happens from time to time.
These are all things that cause me concern but, candidly, I am not really qualified to judge their seriousness. What seriously concerns me and I do feel qualified to judge, however, is the fact that pilots and crew come to me to tell me what is happening. I know for a fact that, in years gone by, any concerns of that sort would have been addressed comfortably within the company—the culture of the company allowed that to happen. It should concern us all to hear concerns of that sort, on top of crews taking industrial action, as they did earlier this year, on top of the hardball tactics deployed by the company in response to the strikes, and on top of the way in which changes to the response time for the SAR service in Sumburgh and Stornoway were made known. The blue-chip blue light service that we have enjoyed hitherto is under threat.