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Defence

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. The debate so far has contained some grand themes, none more so than those from my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin). His speech was superb. It is the sort of thing that I have come to expect from him on the Defence Committee. I pay tribute to the Defence Committee and to the right hon. and hon. Members who, over time, have served on it. My hon. Friend's contribution has been outstanding. The Committee will enormously miss the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), who has been on it since before most of us were born, and whose contribution has been utterly outstanding. He even questioned me back in the dim and distant past when I was a member of the Government, and it was a difficult thing to deal with. I also pay tribute, if I may, to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), because her contributions over the years to defence debates have been extremely cogent, effective and influential in what they have brought about in defence thinking in the country. With such grand themes going through the debate, I want to concentrate on one small matter and speak for not very long. It may seem a small matter to many people, but it encapsulates an extremely important issue. In my constituency there is an excellent local newspaper called the Basingstoke Gazette, and it has picked up a campaign that has been running since 1994 in relation to the pilots of the Chinook that crashed on the Mull of Kintyre. I want to talk about that, because the rules at the time of the crash stated that""only in cases in which there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever should deceased air crew be found negligent"." I take that to mean that all other possible causes of a crash should be eliminated before negligence can be found, and it is necessary to remember that it is essential to eliminate those causes in relation to both pilots. So if one of the pilots might have been negligent but the other not, and one could not tell which, it would be essential, under the rule that applied at the time, to clear both pilots. In Defence questions on 11 January, I therefore asked the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, the hon. Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), to whom these remarks are addressed, this question:""As both pilots were found grossly negligent, how does the Minister know with absolutely no doubt whatever that both pilots agreed with the route and the course of action being taken?"" The Minister replied:""Let me make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know has taken a detailed interest in this matter, that in all the publicity surrounding this case—and certainly that produced by the BBC in recent weeks—there has never been any evidence of technical failure."—[Official Report, 11 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 399.]" That is an interesting and, I suggest, incorrect answer to a question that I had not actually posed. The question that I asked was, how do we know that both pilots agreed? If one pilot disagreed with the route or with the course of action, surely that pilot was not negligent. There was no cockpit voice recorder, there was no black box and we do not know the conversation between the pilots at the time. I have written to the Minister since Defence questions in January, and if he is able to answer that question now, I will be, of course, more than happy to give way to him. If he is able to answer it in his winding-up speech, of course that will be good, too. But another possibility is that one of the pilots was not in the best of health in the final seconds of that flight. One might have had a heart attack. The fact that there was no evidence that either pilot had had a heart attack does not mean that there was evidence of an absence of a heart attack. I can say that, because the pathologist has written to me to say that of course he cannot say that, with absolutely no doubt whatsoever, neither pilot had a heart attack. That is not the way in which doctors work. Then there is the issue of technical malfunction. So many inquiries have taken place on this issue, but I shall quote one of them by the House of Lords Select Committee on Chinook ZD 756, which stated:""Although no trace of any mechanical fault, other than a defective radar altimeter, was found by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch inspector, he was unable to dismiss the possibility of an undemanded flight control movement, an engine run up or a control jam having occurred. Any of these events could have had a serious effect upon the crew's ability to control the aircraft."" The fact that there was no evidence of that happening does not mean that there was evidence of it not happening. All those things add up to one thing, and that is doubt. Therefore, I am grateful to Conservative Front Benchers for saying that, in the event of a Conservative election victory, there will be a review. I am grateful also to the Minister for saying that he is happy to meet me and the parents of the pilots at the end of this month, and I shall look forward to that.