Mr Angus MacDonald

Thank you for allowing me to speak, Ms Furniss. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. He has long campaigned on this issue and that has won him a lot of gratitude from people in Northern Ireland and across Scotland and, indeed, the UK as a whole. I have considerable personal gratitude to the search and rescue helicopter service. Ten years ago, my wife fell off a hill while wearing crampons and using an ice axe, and broke everything in her body. I was in London and got a call from somebody to say, “Your wife is lying on the rocks, a few hundred feet down.” I was so concerned that I ran a situations vacant ad in The Oban Times, but luckily it was not needed because of the rescue of my wife by the search and rescue helicopter. My father was involved in Glencoe Mountain Rescue. He always says that the advent of search and rescue helicopters was probably the biggest change in the history of saving people in the mountains. I am pleased to speak in this debate as my constituency includes Inverness, home to one of the top 10 search and rescue helicopter operations in the UK. Those centres, and the incredible teams who staff them, are an essential part of our emergency service infrastructure. Their stability and effectiveness are not only important but essential, as I know to my benefit. Some people in the Chamber might not be aware of the scale of it. It is a £1.6 billion, 10-year programme, so it is a big contract. The UK search and rescue service provides 18 helicopters and six fixed-wing planes, based in 10 locations, from Newquay up to Sumburgh. There are two aircraft in each base. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned, when the leaked plans to increase the emergency response time for rescue helicopters based at Sumburgh emerged, back in 2023, he acted swiftly and decisively. His efforts paid off as the then Minister, Guy Opperman, stated that the changes would not happen for many years to come, and that “all four current helicopter bases in Scotland will remain open.” —[Official Report, 22 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 127.] Hopefully, the new Government will ensure that we continue to hold on firm on that. Quick responses to immediate problems are vital, but what is even more important is addressing the long-term decline in the services before they reach a crisis point. We need to ensure that the service level commitments do not slip. We have been made aware that there is potential for slippage in the contract. Most people will never need a search and rescue service. However, if they do need one, nothing else will do.