Alex Easton

I totally agree with everything the hon. and learned Member says. The families deserve better; they deserve the truth, and we in Parliament deserve the opportunity to get them that truth. Today, with the clear backing of tens of thousands of British citizens—as evidenced by the Change.org petition—I rise to demand a full public inquiry, because nothing less will provide justice for the dead or restore faith among the living. At the very least, any functioning democracy must be able to answer three basic questions in circumstances such as these: what happened; why did it happen; and what have we done—or what are we going to do—to ensure that it can never happen again? To put it in the terms set out by 24 of the 29 bereaved families, the bare minimum requirement is a fully independent, judge-led public inquiry with statutory powers to compel witnesses and to take evidence under oath; access to all relevant material, including currently sealed documentation; and clear, robust recommendations for systemic reform, so that nothing like this can ever happen again. The integrity, clarity and reasonableness of what is being sought could not be more evident. This is not a radical demand; it is the basic standard of accountability that a mature democracy owes to its citizens and, above all, to those who lost their lives and the families. Having identified the gaps, as well as the remedy—a judge-led public inquiry—the question before us is whether we have the will to act. We are here not simply to catalogue injustice, but to confront and correct it. That is ultimately the purpose of this House: to ensure that when wrong has been done, justice is not just spoken of, but delivered. Let me turn to the doubts and divisions that have marred this process. The record shows that from the very outset, the handling of this tragedy has in many ways been a second tragedy. It has been marked by profound and enduring concerns, including the initial findings of gross negligence against the pilots; the long and painful campaign by the pilots’ families—I pay tribute to them all—to overturn that verdict; serious concerns about the airworthiness and software of the Chinook fleet at the time; questions about pressures on crews, training, procedures and decision making; and deep unease, to put it mildly, about conflicts of evidence and missing, incomplete or constrained documentation. Years later, the pilots were posthumously cleared of gross negligence. When I look at what evidence ever existed for such a grave accusation, I find it inexplicable that the original conclusion was reached. That should make every Member of this House stop and think. Let me be absolutely clear: if the state can wrongly pin gross negligence on two dead airmen—men who could not speak in their own defence—what confidence can we possibly have that the whole truth has been properly and fully explored?