Speech in the Scottish Parliament

3 November 2010

That the Parliament considers that RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth make a substantial contribution to the Moray economy; notes that the two bases collectively support 5,711 full-time equivalent jobs in the local economy, which equates to 16% of all full-time equivalent employment in Moray; further notes that direct on-site employment has been identified as 4,037 full-time equivalents and gross income as £158.3 million; considers that the wider impact on population is significant, with the families of RAF personnel accounting for 1,457 spouses and 1,919 children up to 16 years of age, which is 7% of the total population of Moray and 8% of its working-age population; believes that the economy and population of Moray are heavily dependent on the RAF and that the two bases make a highly significant contribution to the population and economic prosperity of the area, and considers that any decisions about the future of RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth should take into consideration the social and economic role played by both bases in the Moray area.

David Stewart : I place on record my thanks to all members from across the political divide who have signed my motion and those members who have stayed behind this evening to debate what is an important subject.

I congratulate the four party leaders—Alex Salmond, Annabel Goldie, Tavish Scott and my party leader, Iain Gray—on committing to supporting the RAF Lossie rally on Sunday, which I believe will be one of the most important and significant rallies that Moray and Scotland have experienced in the past decade.

RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossie have great personal resonance for me.

My father did his national service with the Royal Air Force as a fresh-faced 18-year-old, and his first posting was at Kinloss.

During my time at Westminster, I was honoured to serve with the RAF as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme.

I had placements in both bases, as well as in Basra, and flew in Tornado, Nimrod and Sea King search and rescue aircraft.

On my last day with the RAF, the Sea King had an emergency to attend at Glencoe.

I spent eight hours in the air watching the bravery, expertise and professionalism of the pilots and winch crew as they saved the lives of a young Swiss couple who had suffered facial injuries in a mountain accident.

I will touch on the strategic defence and security review, before referring to the social and economic impacts of the base closures.

As all members will be aware, Kinloss is the home base of the Nimrod fleet of maritime aircraft.

The new MRA4 Nimrod came into service this year and a fleet of nine had been ordered from BAE Systems.

The decision in the SDSR to scrap the MRA4 will, in effect, close Kinloss as an RAF base.

As members will recall, Kinloss also hosts the aeronautical rescue co-ordination centre as well as NATO exercises several times a year.

One of the world's most respected defence commentators, Jane's Defence Weekly, has said that the cancellation of the Nimrod programme would not save significant amounts of money from the £3.65 billion procurement costs of the aircraft, because almost all of it has already been spent on development and production.

If we add the cancellation fees to the mix, it makes more economic sense to keep the programme than it does to cancel it.

It is Alice in Wonderland economics to stop a scheme under which one aircraft has already been built and delivered to Kinloss and the other eight are 90 per cent complete.

The Nimrods are being built at the BAE Systems plant in Woodford, Cheshire.

The Unite convener there, Kevin French, was quoted recently on BBC Manchester as saying:

"It looks like they are going to cut them up.

"They will probably bring in a big company to crush them and cut them up, chop their wings off.

2It will be as crude as that.

"It will be the most expensive scrap metal they will have ever paid for.

"It is such a waste of money—why would you pay almost £4bn and not put the planes into service?"

The new MRA4 is intended to provide the nation's long-range search and rescue capability.

Fixed-wing aircraft such as the Nimrod are capable of getting into the search area quickly and covering large areas efficiently and, of course, of remaining on the scene for several hours.

We all know about the sterling work that was carried out by the pilots, the air crew and the aircraft during the Piper Alpha disaster.

Who and what will cover the gap?

The other assets that we currently have either lack the range, in the case of helicopters, or the necessary electronic search equipment, such as night-vision cameras.

However, members should not take my word for that.

As recently as September, the Secretary of State for Defence, Liam Fox, stated in a leaked letter to David Cameron:

"Deletion of the Nimrod MR4 will limit our ability to deploy maritime forces rapidly into high-threat areas; increase the risk to the deterrent; compromise maritime CT (counter terrorism); remove long-range search and rescue, and delete one element of our Falklands reinforcement plan."

Just along the coast from Kinloss, as members will be aware, RAF Lossiemouth is home to the largest fast-jet base in the United Kingdom, containing three operational squadrons of Tornado GR4s and Sea King search and rescue aircraft, as well as an extensive range of operational, logistic and administrative support functions.

The SDSR argued that in the future the fast-jet fleet will be made up of the Typhoon and the new joint strike fighter. In the transitional period there will be a reduced Tornado fleet.

David Stewart: I agree with those points.

When the base was opened more than 60 years ago, it was sited there not only for social and economic reasons—which I, of course, agree with—but for good defence reasons.

Fast jets needed to be placed there for good geographic reasons.

During the Westminster debate, Opposition back benchers referred to a leaked document from the Ministry of Defence that said that the Tornado fleet, along with aircraft maintenance, would be centralised at RAF Marham in a year's time.

I will move briefly to the social and economic impact.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise's independent economic impact analysis has identified that both bases support more than 5,500 full-time jobs—16 per cent of all the full-time jobs in Moray—and that the economic impact will be more than £158 million a year.

The report concludes:

"It is clear that the economy and population of Moray are heavily dependent on the RAF, probably more so than any other region of the UK."

Let us now talk about the way forward.

We all know that 18 years ago the American naval base in Dunoon closed with a loss of 4,500 American personnel to the Argyll and Bute economy.

At that point, a dynamic economic committee was set up with European Union and Government funding to look at alternatives.

Let me place on the record my applause for the work that the Moray task force has done to date.

There is much that we can learn from Dunoon and from the US, where the Government takes responsibility to rebuild and reboot local areas when defence bases close.

That functions as a form of social covenant with the local community.

Tonight, I am calling for such a social covenant with the people of Moray.

There need to be myriad economic levers to attract inward investment, to stimulate local business initiatives and to offer ex-RAF and civilian staff retraining and support, which John Swinney referred to last week.

We need to seek to draw down more EU funding, we need to consider relocating more Scottish Government posts and agencies to the area and we need to look at the timescale for the special enterprise zone for Moray.

Moray is a strong and resilient community with businesses—such as whisky, fishing and farming—strong local councillors, churches and trade unionists and a dynamic voluntary sector.

In closing, I will paraphrase Canon Kenyon Wright: What if the Government said the bases should close, and they are the Government, but the community of Moray said no—and they are the people?

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