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Lord Chalfont rose to move, as an amendment to the above Motion, to leave out all the words after "That" and insert, "this House declines to approve the draft Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order 2002 in respect of the Air Force until such time as Her Majesty's Government have responded to the report of the Select Committee on Chinook ZD576".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am fully aware of the significance of this amendment. Indeed, had I not been, I should not have tabled it. If it were pressed to a Division and carried, it would mean, as the Minister said, that from 31st August Parliament's approval to the continuation of the Armed Forces—particularly the Royal Air Force, although the Minister says that it would apply to all three—would be withdrawn. That would be a drastic step. Your Lordships know me and my record well enough to know that I find such a step difficult to contemplate. However, I am concerned to demonstrate that it is a step which a sovereign Parliament is constitutionally empowered to take. Your Lordships could, in fact, take it tonight. I am not, however, about to suggest that your Lordships should actually take that step, merely that we should remind the Government, and especially the Ministry of Defence and some of its officials, of the existence and importance of the constitution and of Parliament's place in it.
My principal aim in tabling this amendment is to suggest that in the matter of the Select Committee on the Chinook helicopter crash we are now dealing with
a matter which has constitutional implications. There is no place in this issue for concepts like "airmanship" or "the chain of command", important as they may be in the services. This is a matter of natural justice and constitutional propriety, and these are the important issues. I am no lawyer or authority on the constitution, but if I have misunderstood the position there are those in this House who are qualified to put me right.As I understand it, in this country executive institutions, including departments of state, have their source in a constitution which, even if it is unwritten, is to be obeyed and not departed from at the whim of the government of the day, of whatever complexion—which means in effect that we have in this country a government of law, not of men. In that context I should like this House to see the response of the Government to the Select Committee's report before it approves the continuation in force of the Air Force Discipline Act.
The constitution, according to Dicey, the great constitutional lawyer, rests upon two pillars—parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law. These twin pillars are reflected in the draft order that your Lordships are being asked to approve today. My amendment is designed as a reminder of those two principles. It seems to me that the attitude of the Ministry of Defence in the case of the helicopter crash displays a somewhat cavalier attitude to both.
I need hardly remind your Lordships that this saga began in 1994 when a Chinook helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre, killing the aircrew and all 25 passengers. After a Royal Air Force board of inquiry had initially failed to establish a cause for the accident, the reviewing officers, Air Marshals Day and Wratten, decided that it was due to gross negligence on the part of the two pilots, Flight Lieutenants Tapper and Cook.
After much controversy, a Select Committee of this House was set up to consider whether this verdict was justified. On 31st January this year, it delivered a report which came to the unanimous conclusion that,
- "the reviewing officers were not justified in finding that negligence on the part of the pilots caused the aircraft to crash".
It is not my intention today to go into any further detail on the Select Committee report or on any other aspects of the helicopter accident. This is not, as someone rather rudely suggested in the House Magazine, a peg on which to hang another Chinook debate. But, according to the Companion, the Ministry of Defence—as has been confirmed by the Minister—has six months to respond to the report. It is somewhat surprising that it needs quite so much time. The obvious response to the unambiguous report of the Select Committee is to set aside immediately the verdict of gross negligence. However, one would normally wait, with whatever patience one could muster, until the response was forthcoming. But there are reports from sources that I would normally regard as reliable that, in spite of the Select Committee's report, there is no intention of setting aside the air marshals' verdict.
If that is true, it seems to me that it runs counter to the constitutional principles both of parliamentary sovereignty and of the rule of law. But it would not be entirely surprising, since the Ministry of Defence virtually ignored the report of the Public Accounts Committee in another place, which also questioned the validity of the air marshals' verdict, leading the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee to accuse the MoD of "unwarrantable arrogance". I do not go so far as that. Incidentally, the Ministry of Defence has also ignored the finding of the fatal accident inquiry in Scotland, which came to the same conclusion; namely, that there was no evidence to indicate negligence on the part of the pilots. This seems to me again to be showing little concern for the rule of law.
A further negative response from the Government would signify that the verdict of two air force officers is to stand in spite of the fact that a Select Committee of this House has decided that it is in effect unlawful. That is a decision which this House would naturally wish to debate. The Select Committee was set up after a substantial majority in this House voted for it. If its report is to be rejected or ignored, the House may have something to say about that. The Ministry of Defence insists that no decision has yet been made. In that case it may want to take this into account before arriving at its decision.
We were told by the Minister on 1st May that the Government hoped to have their response ready for debate in this House—if indeed a debate were necessary—before the Summer Recess. Evidently, from what the Minister said, that is unlikely to be so. Perhaps he will confirm that in his reply. If the report is not received by your Lordships' House within a very short period, there will be no time for the debate before the Summer Recess that we had been led to believe there would be. Your Lordships would therefore not have an opportunity to debate the important issue of the Ministry's response to the report of the Select Committee before, at the very earliest, October.
I conclude on an important point. I recognise that the Government are not obliged to accept the report of a parliamentary Select Committee. I fully recognise that. I do not agree with it. I think that it is offensive to anyone who believes in the importance of constitutionalism. However, it is the case and we have no way out of it. Perhaps the only way of persuading the Ministry of Defence to respond positively to the report is to use the constitutional means which I am using today to underline the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law, and to express the hope that the Ministry of Defence will have full cognisance of both as it comes to its final decision.
As I said, my principal aim in moving this amendment is not to cause disruption in the Armed Forces or to damage national security, but to draw attention to the constitutional dimension in this matter, to give noble Lords an opportunity before October of expressing their views on the MoD's handling of this whole tragic affair, and perhaps to
give the MoD a constitutional reason why it should accept the report of the Select Committee of your Lordships' House. I beg to move.Moved, as an amendment to the above Motion, to leave out all the words after "That" and insert, "this House declines to approve the draft Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order 2002 in respect of the Air Force until such time as Her Majesty's Government have responded to the report of the Select Committee on Chinook ZD576".—(Lord Chalfont.)
8 p.m.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, when this matter was first discussed in your Lordships' House a few years ago, in the wake of the Chinook disaster, I believed that I was right in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. In fact, I went to the site of the accident and met lots of people, including those who were there that evening when the helicopter crashed. They all believed that the weather that day had played a great part in the accident.
I have a little house in County Antrim, on the shores of Murlough Bay, 11 miles from the Mull of Kintyre. Last weekend and the weekend before—and probably this weekend, too—one could not see the Mull of Kintyre at five minutes to noon because of the clouds. At 12.10 p.m., however, it was totally clear. At 12.20 p.m., the clouds had returned. That is how it is there. I shall not get involved in the issue of whether the Chinook had defects. However, I am quite prepared to accept that the weather conditions played a part in the disaster.
I have met many of the widows of those killed in the disaster. Like me and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, they feel that it is absolutely unfair to blame those two young pilots for crashing their helicopter into the Mull of Kintyre. The situation has placed a burden on their families—on their fathers, mothers and other relations—but most of all on their children, who now carry the burden of claims that their fathers are responsible for causing the death of the 28 officers on the flight.
When the Select Committee reported, I thought that that would probably be the end of the matter. A Select Committee composed of Members of your Lordships' House examined in great detail every aspect of the facts surrounding the crash. I believed that the MoD would have to abide by the report. From what I have heard since, however, it seems that the MoD has its back to the wall. It is not going to give way one inch on the findings of the two air marshals. I am certain that some noble Lords will defend the two air marshals in this debate. However, there are those like the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and me who will tenaciously pursue this case until the pilots are cleared or we have to accept without a shred of doubt that they are guilty of gross negligence. There is no way in which I and many others in that community can be convinced that the two pilots were so unconcerned about their duties that they mistakenly, drunkenly or in any similar way flew into the Mull of Kintyre.
The Ministry has taken the view that it must accept the Air marshals' findings. However, the two air marshals are as capable as anyone else of misinterpreting the facts of the disaster. No one is saying that they are God and must be right. They were not on that helicopter. Regardless of the reports that they have read in the MoD, it is not beyond question that they are right. I do not believe that they can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that those two young pilots are guilty of gross negligence which led to their death and the death of their comrades.
It has been suggested that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, believes that the Select Committee report should be accepted. I should hope that it will be. However, if it is not, it should be debated on the Floor of the House. We can then decide whether to accept findings unanimously accepted by 12 noble Lords. The Select Committee examined every aspect of this terrible accident, and I believe that its report should be accepted.
I know that we shall hear from people in the military about the matter. The military has a view on this, and the military has its back to the wall. It will want to defend its position. However, millions of people in this country are not in the military and do not abide by every diktat from air force and MoD officers. The first investigation into the matter, conducted in Scotland, found that it could not be proven beyond doubt that the pilots are guilty. However, the Ministry and the air marshals contradicted that and gave their verdict.
The Chinook disaster has had an awful effect on the people of Northern Ireland. Most of the young people killed in the accident—the 28 police officers—had been conducting a war against the greatest terrorist organisation that these islands have seen. Those young police officers had dedicated their lives to eradicating terrorism in Northern Ireland. That is why the Chinook disaster and everything surrounding it has had such an effect on the people of Northern Ireland.
As I said, I have repeatedly met the widows of the two pilots and the widows of the police officers killed in the tragedy. If the Government are not prepared to say that they will accept the Select Committee's findings, let the whole issue be debated in this House. Let us all have a say on what we know about the circumstances relating to this disaster.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, in his tenacious attitude to pursuing this case, is carrying on a campaign which I believe will have the support of the overwhelming majority of the people living in these islands.
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