Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-207)
RT HON
ADAM INGRAM
MP, AIR MARSHAL
SIR GLENN
TORPY KCB CBE, DR
ROGER HUTTON
AND MR
PETER HOLLAND
7 MARCH 2006
Q200 Robert Key: It seems to me unlikely
that we are going to have enough of the model K Hercules which
definitely has the latest generation DA suites and we are going
to use more Js which are not upgraded. Evidence has been given
to the Committee that there was a programme to equip 15 of the
Js with the latest generation of DAS but the programme was cancelled.
Is that true? Therefore, does that account for the fact that we
have also been told that some of the pilots are most concerned
because they are not clear in Afghanistan whether they should
be flying high where they will still be able to be hit by some
missile or low, hedge hopping. We have evidence from other Members
of Parliament that there has been hedge hopping because pilots
have not been clear whether they should be high or low because
they do not have full defensive aid suites.
Mr Ingram: You say that evidence
has been given. Has it been given in public session to the Committee?
Q201 Robert Key: No.
Mr Ingram: If it was in public
session, my worries and caveats would have been there. I do not
know the source of the evidence. I do not know whether we should
be privy to where it is coming from. If it is evidence, then I
would guess that it has to be questioned. Has it been questioned
or is it just information that has been given?
Robert Key: I would say it is credible
but, Chairman, it is for you to decide.
John Smith: It is single source.
Chairman: It is from Lord Hamilton.
Robert Key: And the pilot.
Mr Havard: It is Nigel Gilbert.[5]
Q202 Chairman: He has been on television
saying these things.
Mr Ingram: We will need to take
on board the question. We do not have the answer here. We will
try and get you the answer. We will have to see what the allegation
is and therefore what the decision line is because there may well
be a process where this has actually been considered. Someone
within the bounds of the system may say it has been rejected but
it may not have been rejected. Therefore, maybe "tittle tattle"
was the wrong phrase but it is not authoritative because it does
not accord with the full processes that are currently under way.
What we will always seek to do is to ensure that we give the best
protection to our people. That is not always easily achievable.
It is not always something we can deliver tomorrow and therefore
that is why I used the word "vulnerabilities", because
the hard logic of what has perhaps been argued by some people
is that until everything is done nothing is done. I am not saying
those around this table but others use this argument that, if
there is a risk that could result in a loss of life, we should
not be committing our forces before reducing or removing that
risk. That is not humanly possible for any modern Armed Forces.
I hope the Committee understands that what we have to do is to
minimise that risk.
Q203 Robert Key: The Minister needs to
understand we are entirely on his side. This goes back to the
question about the Treasury. If, because of financial constraints,
you are unable to upgrade the Js, we think that is something which
is regrettable.
Mr Ingram: It will not be the
Treasury necessarily. It could also be our prioritisation because
we have to balance how much money we have to spend and what we
are going to do with it, recognising by not doing something that
there is an element of risk associated with it. How dangerous
or significant that risk is then has to be considered. It is easy
to say it is the Treasury but we have responsibility for managing
our resources.
Mr Jenkins: I did not want to stop us
going into private session but I did not realise how flimsy the
response was. I am not prepared to ask the Minister to comment
on a letter. What I am prepared to do is to give the Minister
the letter and any other information we have and say, "Go
away and come back with your report" and then I can crucify
him if necessary on the answer, but not at the present time. We
have to ask him to go away and come up with his best answer with
regard to these claims and then we can go through with it but,
at the present time, we are just talking for the sake of talking.
Chairman: We have had allegations put
to us which I think we probably want to investigate.
Q204 Mr Hamilton: I agree with Brian.
I am surprised that we went into private session to discuss one
comment. The Minister made a comment just before we went into
private session: "Give me the information and I will give
a response." I have been on several committees since I came
here in 2001 and two major committees and I have never seen anything
conducted in this way. We are not trying to trap the Minister;
we are trying to engage in finding information. Robert makes the
point that we are in a supportive role but I would far rather,
if we are going to be asking questions, that the information be
given to the appropriate authority and then we go into private
session and discuss the detail of what that is about.
Mr Ingram: What happens to the
information we give? If this is in private session, it cannot
surface?
Chairman: That is fully accepted.
Mr Hancock: I am not here to defend you,
Chairman, but I do not think you had a choice at the time. You
were in the course of a discussion here. You were already seeking
to clarify the responses you gave, Air Marshal, and that is why
you said what you did. You had obviously reflected on what had
been said and you wanted to clarify that, so there were some real
difficulties. It would have been wrong for this to have continued
in open session and I do not think you had an alternative, Chairman.
The point I would like to make is not even to you, Minister, or
to you, Air Marshal, because I do not think it is fair to ask
you this question. It is for your colleagues in the Air Force
to answer the questions because I have spoken to this man on two
occasions and he says that there have been requests made through
the Chain of Command that have never arrived at ministers' desks.
John Smith: There are always requests.
Q205 Mr Hancock: These are about people
flying large numbers of service personnel. Some of them were killed
in an accident. We heard from our colleague in the House of Lords
yesterday that there is now a different version of events in the
bringing down of that Hercules and these people are—
Mr Ingram: There is only one version
of events and that is the BOI. Anyone who speculates has not done
the technical analysis. The BOI is out there and therefore, if
you are talking about the suppression, this was asked for and
never came up through the system. When was the request made? This
is not evidence; this is information. When was it asked for? Who
suppressed it? Who made the decision not to proceed? That individual
can say what everyone knew about this and answer to all the problems.
That is not the conclusion of the BOI and therefore there are
a lot of assumptions in there that you have not interrogated.
Q206 Robert Key: That is what we are
doing.
Mr Ingram: You are basing it upon
someone saying something but you have not put that person on the
spot and said, "Where were you at the time this was done?
Were you part of that decision making chain or did someone tell
you this?" There is a range of questions. Is this a credible
set of information?
Robert Key: Yes.
Mr Havard: I do not know whether it is
credible but it is single source.
Robert Key: No; two.
Mr Havard: I do not know about Lord What's-His-Face.
I have never heard of him.
Robert Key: He is a former defence minister.
Q207 Mr Havard: Maybe he is. We have
two letters from one individual who is an ex-pilot, who alleges
that this asset is vulnerable in a number of different ways. He
says that it does not have the appropriate defensive aid suite
on it of the type necessary for looking at rate based seeker heads
or missiles and so on. He makes a comment about that. He makes
a comment about the armour possibility in the aircraft, where
they have to sit on chains and sit on ceramic plates in case they
get shot in the bum. He makes the point about there not being
sufficient process in order to deal with the foam problem in the
wings if he gets shot down. He then goes on to talk about recovery
and rescue and not enough support for that. It moves from the
vulnerability of the asset to how you retrieve or protect the
asset and so on. All of these are issues that he raises. Whether
or not any of them have any validity or how much there is on each
one I do not know. I would like to give you all this information
so you can go away and look at it and give us some answers. Until
then, it is only one source, as far as I am concerned, alleging
that all these things are true.
Mr Ingram: ***15 I do not know
this individual who is saying this but all he is doing is pointing
up the vulnerabilities. Is there an answer to it? Possibly. Can
we deliver it? Possibly. When are we going to do it? We have to
decide is it worthwhile doing in terms of the age of the aircraft,
whether it is technically possible and what it means in terms
of the fleet. If the view is that there is a risk associated with
this and someone's life may be lost, that is the nature of conflict.
It weighs heavy on all of the minds who make those decisions.
There are risks in everything that we do. We have to decide can
we find an answer to it and, if we talk about this in the public
arena as this gentleman is doing, he is effectively saying, "Why
not have a go at the bad guys?"
Chairman: I want to agree with what David
Hamilton said that it is no part of this Committee's work to try
to trap a minister. I do not think that we have been trying to
do that, but I do believe that there have been allegations which
have been made which we do need to get to the bottom of. It is
the view of this Committee that we should send you all this correspondence
and ask for your answers. If I may say so, you have done the points
you have made no damage whatsoever by the way you have put matters
in the last 10 minutes. Thank you very much indeed. I am very
grateful to you for staying later than 12 o'clock. Thank you very
much.
***15 Not printed.
5 Note: Not printed. Back
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