RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S3M-6920, in the name of David Stewart, on the importance of RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth.
Motion debated,
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.
17:05
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. It 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.
I thank Dave Stewart for giving way to me in my role as the constituency member for Moray. As he indicates, the people of Moray are certainly “Up for the fight”. I use the opportunity to express the very deep gratitude of the people of Moray for the cross-party support that they are receiving for their campaign.
I agree with Dave Stewart that it is complete folly to cancel the Nimrod contract when BAE is completing the aircraft, which are badly needed, and when the UK Government has already spent billions of pounds of public money on that defence capability. Does he agree that, at a time when the defence footprint in Scotland is disproportionately small, it would be even greater folly to jeopardise the future of RAF Lossiemouth by not basing the Tornadoes at that base, given that the defence, economic and social case is extremely strong? Finally, does he agree that it would be a betrayal of not only the people of Moray but the whole of Scotland were that base to be run down or closed?
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?
17:13
As a Lossie loon, ah ken mair than maist jist foo much Moray fowk are feeling the snell Lib-Con win aat’s blawin roon thir necks. Indeed, Moray is gripped by fear and apprehension following the decision of politicians in a distant land to wipe out the Kinloss air base.
The decision will have a devastating impact on service personnel—and their families—who have bought homes and settled in that beautiful part of Scotland, and on hundreds of small businesses, community groups, schools and public services once the RAF personnel are removed.
Thousands of people who are indirectly affected by this controversial discussion are also waiting nervously to find out what impact it will have on the value of their homes, the future of their children’s schools and even the viability of their local butcher.
All the while, the people of Moray cannot escape the fear that this disastrous news about Kinloss is merely the harbinger of an even more devastating cut to follow. There are fears that the demise of Kinloss will soon be followed by a similar announcement about the closure of neighbouring RAF Lossie, which raises the prospect of a second, even more damaging, blow to the economy of Moray and the surrounding communities.
That fear and uncertainty was made clear to me by dozens of people whom I met in Forres, close to RAF Kinloss, when I visited there last month, shortly after they had been shocked by the unwelcome announcement. That was in dramatic contrast to the enthusiasm that I saw when I visited RAF Kinloss with my son-in-law Stefan this summer to have a go on the simulator that is installed at the base to help to train pilots and crew of the eagerly awaited next generation Nimrod surveillance and rescue aircraft, the MRA4.
The effect on Moray will be devastating and I was very disappointed by David Cameron’s flippant remarks last week, because the loss of defence jobs in Moray is no laughing matter. Mr Cameron should also know that Scotland is not just one region but several, and that aircraft carriers in the central belt are no compensation for cuts in Moray.
Moray is already disadvantaged, as average wages are just £407.50 a week, which is 13.7 per cent less than the Scottish average. With the loss of the higher wages at the bases, that figure will drop even further below the Scottish average. It is unacceptable that Moray should suffer in that way, especially as the UK Government takes in hundreds of millions of pounds a year from Moray whisky, which is enough to pay for the bases many times over. It is also the case that Scotland does not get its fair share of defence spending and that more is spent on defence in London than on the whole of Scotland.
The Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems have been fond of telling us that an independent Scotland could not afford the Moray bases and that they would close when Scotland got independence. It now looks as though they are intent—as one letter writer to a local paper put it—on punishing the people of Moray for voting SNP. If that is not the case, they must prove it. They must tell us quickly exactly what is to happen at Kinloss.
Will Mr Thompson give way?
I have no time.
They must tell us quickly whether Lossie is safe and they must, at the very least, step up to the plate with a substantial transition fund to offset the economic impact of their decisions. Anything less and they will find that they will not be forgiven by the people of Moray or by the people of Scotland.
17:17
I will be comparatively brief. I very much welcome the fact that Dave Stewart has brought this motion for debate and I welcome the support from all parties in the chamber on the issues that Moray faces. Dave Stewart’s motion captures adequately the scale of the problem that will be visited on Moray and the challenge that that community will face in coming years.
I first became fully aware of the scale of Kinloss as a base in the 1970s when I set up the first citizens advice bureau in Moray, which was in beside that base—it subsequently moved to Forres and then on to Elgin. I made many trips to the base over that period and I became very familiar with service personnel, their comings and goings to and from the base and the huge number of suppliers to the base from the local community—suppliers of food, administrative support and a variety of other things.
I also became aware of the nature of the employment of many of the RAF personnel’s spouses. They were employed as nurses, care workers, teachers and classroom assistants, by the local authority, in lawyers’ offices or in the retail sector. One of the key things to understand about the Moray economy is that the wider economy is inextricably caught up with the success or otherwise of the RAF bases. Dave Stewart’s motion provides the figures on the scale of that impact in Moray.
I have been around public life in the Highlands and Islands for about 30 years. I have seen big closures, such as the closure of the aluminium smelter in Invergordon, with thousands of job losses, and that of the pulp mill in Fort William. I have seen the rise and fall of the oil construction bases in the region. The RAF closures, particularly if the closure of RAF Lossiemouth goes ahead, which I hope it will not, are every bit as big as any other closure that has been visited on the Highlands and Islands at any point in the past 30 years. I know from my experience of working in the CAB when the aluminium smelter closed and of being a local authority leader during other parts of that period that it takes a decade and more for any local economy to recover from such a blow. In that decade, huge personal tragedy follows—there is unemployment and loss of opportunity; people’s aspirations go and are blighted; and the value of houses is affected. People experience a range of changes.
As Dave Stewart says, what is particularly perplexing about the Kinloss decision—and possibly the Lossiemouth decision that is to come—is that it is irrational, given all the statements that have been made about the need for that strategic base.
As Dave Thompson hinted and as Dave Stewart said, the UK Government cannot be allowed simply to walk away from the situation. A facility cannot be present in a community for half a century or more and create an economic dependency—which has suited the RAF and the defence industry in that time—from which the Government simply walks away. As Dave Stewart said, a social covenant is required between the UK Government and the community for the future.
The immediate priority is to continue to argue against the closure of Lossiemouth. With other members, I will take part in the demonstration on Sunday. We also need to continue to make it clear to the UK Government that, whatever the decisions and the final impact are, it cannot walk away from its responsibility to play a full part in helping to restore the community’s economy. We must not let the UK Government off the hook on that.
17:21
I, too, thank David Stewart for securing the debate. Like others, I commend the work of the local campaign and of the task force and the Northern Scot’s petition.
David Stewart’s motion could go further. He says that
“the economy and population of Moray are heavily dependent on the RAF”,
but Moray is the most RAF-dependent community in the United Kingdom: it has more than 5,700 full-time RAF employees; annual gross income from the bases is £158 million; 2,000 RAF spouses and dependants live in the area; and RAF personnel families account for almost 20 per cent of the school population.
None of us could be happy with the decision to close the RAF base at Kinloss, but I would be incredulous at any suggestion that other parties would not have taken such difficult decisions in government. The £38 billion overspend in the defence budget that the previous Labour Government left meant that difficult decisions would always have to be made.
The coalition Government listened to the advice that the military gave. Unfortunately, the decision to cancel the Nimrod replacement will result in the closure of the base at Kinloss. However, the fight to retain RAF Lossiemouth is still very much alive. I and all my Conservative colleagues fully support it and I confirm that I will be alongside my party’s leader and others on Sunday.
Will Mary Scanlon give way?
Not at the moment—I am worried that I will run out of time.
The coalition Government is considering Kinloss as a base for the Army. In the next 10 years, 20,000 military personnel and 23,000 spouses and children are due to return to the UK from Germany, and 50 per cent are due to return no later than 2015. The facilities, infrastructure and well-maintained housing that are available at Kinloss are first class. Along with my colleagues in the Parliament, I urge the UK Government to accelerate the resettlement of troops in Kinloss, which will assist the local economy when RAF personnel leave.
We are all getting e-mails and letters from ex-RAF personnel. One such person who is still based in Moray has suggested to me the possibility of using part of the expansive estate at Kinloss as an air salvage unit. Has the Scottish Government considered that option? How would it assist a company that wished to base itself at Kinloss for that purpose?
I understand that, in the aviation industry, 12,500 passenger planes around the world will reach the end of their useful life in the next 20 years—that is more than 400 annually. Such planes are stripped of their useful components and recycled; engineers spend between two and three months on each plane. The suggestion was made because a company near Cirencester uses a former RAF airfield at Kemble. Something like that would utilise part of the Kinloss base and could provide local employment for many of the highly skilled engineers who are based there and wish to stay in the area after the RAF presence has gone. The aftermath of the removal of the RAF at Kinloss will not be easy, but those difficulties can be reduced with assistance from the UK Government and the Scottish Government.
While the social and economic arguments for saving RAF Lossiemouth are compelling, so are the strategic issues surrounding its location. The number of flying hours at RAF Lossiemouth is greater than at any other UK base. The skies are uncluttered and the flying conditions over the North Sea and the mountainous terrains provide ideal tests for pilots.
The member must conclude now.
We can and must do more to support RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth.
17:26
Any Government, in any constitutional arrangement, would have to make decisions about what are the best security arrangements for our people and our land and what is the best method of projecting our foreign policy around the world. That would be the case whether or not we were part of the United Kingdom. Wherever our military personnel—whether in the RAF, our land forces or our naval forces—are stationed, they will have an impact on the local economy. If they have been stationed there for 65 years, as they have in Moray, they will have made a significant impact on the local economy. The same applies at Glencorse, in my constituency, and in other parts of Scotland. It is right that the minister summing up the debate today is the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, because the focus of the debate is the economic and socioeconomic impact.
Moray has often been—and will continue to be—compared with the Borders in my constituency. That is understandable given its economic, socioeconomic and wage profile. The two areas that are always cited as the lowest-wage areas in Scotland are the Borders and Moray. If I was in the place of the local MSP, Richard Lochhead, I would be doing exactly what he is doing. There is no lack of support from the Liberal Democrats for the local work that is going on. Tavish Scott will join the other leaders.
I commend David Stewart for securing the debate. Although the statistics in his motion are bald, they sum up perfectly the significance of the debate not only for jobs but for families and for the future economic success of that part of Scotland.
Peter Peacock made a strong point about the economic impact of closure on an area that is disproportionately reliant on a single employer, be it an RAF base, an electronics company or a textile mill in the Borders. That impact is often much more significant in a rural area than in a city.
I was among those MSPs to receive correspondence from the Secretary of State for Defence at the time of the defence review. All Government agencies, whether in the Highlands or the lowlands, and both devolved and UK, have to work together on behalf of the people they represent. There should be no division, nor should we seek to create a division, between the agencies that are tasked to do that work.
As I said, I speak as the MSP representing Glencorse barracks. Its defence profile is interesting. Glencorse barracks is the permanent headquarters of the second battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The Royal Highland Fusiliers recruit from Glasgow and Ayrshire. It is Scotland’s regiment, if we wish to call it that.
Richard Lochhead talked about the defence footprint. I want to make a brief comment about Scotland’s military footprint. There are just over 5,000 troops in Scotland, but two thirds of them are not stationed in Scotland. Young men and women who wish to serve in the RAF and the navy may not know where they will be stationed, or indeed where they will be sent to serve. However, we know that the military has a significant impact in Moray and that changes to its deployment have long-lasting impacts. This should not be a debate about defence and security, because that would take us in directions that would divide the Parliament; it is good that it is a debate about the communities that all of us seek to represent. Every effort must be made to ensure that those communities are supported to the best of all of our abilities.
17:30
I congratulate Dave Stewart on securing the debate. Most of us would find it distasteful to have to debate the closure of a large business such as the smelter at Invergordon that Peter Peacock mentioned. At the time of the smelter’s closure, I was a principal teacher of guidance at Alness academy, so I can tell members that such decisions have huge effects on families and children.
Jeremy Purvis alluded to the fact that staff at Kinloss do not know where they will go. That creates a terrible feeling of uncertainty and nervousness among families, as much as among serving personnel. It also creates uncertainty in the community. Many spouses and others are staff in schools and hospitals; the children are users of schools and, in many cases, hospitals. In my question to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth following his emergency statement last Thursday, I asked him to take that into account when analysing the economic impact of the proposed closure. We must consider the human impact of the measure, because the wellbeing of the wider community, including service personnel, is at stake.
If there is a planning arrangement and a partnership with the MOD—assuming that it is not prepared to change its mind about Kinloss—it will have to look carefully at the facilities that are available on the base. Having known people who were housing officers, I disagree somewhat with Mary Scanlon about the quality of the housing there. It may have improved in recent years, but it has a long way to go in comparison with council housing. It is also likely that many more houses will be required if Army personnel are brought to Moray.
Will the member take an intervention?
I would rather not. The chamber should understand that information that I bring to the debate is as important as other members’ comments. I want to add to the sum of knowledge, not to debate the detail. However, the member made a fair point.
When we demand support for Kinloss people and the Lossiemouth base, we must find ways of ensuring that wellbeing is measured in the debate. It is not just about gross domestic product and wages—it is also about human beings and their feelings about how they conduct their lives. They are service personnel who are doing a job for us, so it is important that we look after them. We expect the task force to try to achieve that with the MOD.
My final point relates to the MRA4, the Nimrod aircraft that we were due to get. It is a conundrum that such aircraft are just as valuable in peacetime as they are in war. We know how much they have helped with search and rescue in the past. It is worrying that, at the same time as the aircraft are being cancelled, the Government in London is thinking of scrapping the coastguard tugs that perform a similar role. Can members imagine how the conjunction of two decisions of that sort will affect people around the north, west and east coasts of Scotland? The conjunction of those decisions, involving search and rescue and how we deal with stricken ships, shows a lack of joined-up thinking about the lives of people in those parts of Scotland and our near waters. It is important that other organisations, such as fishing organisations, recognise the need for them to speak up, because two Cessna aircraft are not a substitute for a squadron of RAF Nimrods. We should fight hard to get some of them back.
17:34
I add my congratulations to David Stewart on securing tonight’s debate. This is a time when people in Moray are understandably shocked and angry over the coming devastation of their local economy. It is more important than ever that the issues are discussed in the Scottish Parliament, and I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate.
In previous years, we have seen only too clearly the economic and social devastation that the loss of a local base can cause to communities in Scotland. There can be few examples of past closures, however, where two bases that are so tightly woven into the fabric of a local community and that are so integral to the local economy have been under threat at the same time. As a Keith quine, I know how far from Lossie and Kinloss—through Forres and Elgin—the influences of the bases stretch in the north-east of Scotland.
As the motion makes clear, and as David Stewart made clear in his speech, 16 per cent of all full-time equivalent employment in Moray is directly linked to the bases, and their loss would be a devastating blow to the area. As Rob Gibson and other members have mentioned, that loss would have a significant knock-on effect on local services, including education and health, and on the economic wellbeing of people throughout the area. I know that the Scottish Government and its agencies will work tirelessly to mitigate the impact of the SDSR’s decisions as far as they possibly can, but there can be little doubt that there will be really tough times ahead for people in Moray.
As this is a Westminster decision, it is vitally important that Westminster resources are also deployed if one or both of the bases close. Scottish Government resources must not exclusively be left to pick up the pieces after a Westminster decision. Perhaps the minister will tell us what Westminster resources he thinks can be made available.
The importance of the Moray bases extends well beyond the communities that they are part of. As has been mentioned, the Nimrod fleet has played an incredibly important role in rescue operations in many parts of the world, perhaps nowhere as important as the waters off our coast. During tragic events such as last year’s North Sea helicopter crashes, or the Piper Alpha disaster in the 1980s, Nimrods from RAF Kinloss have been on hand, often arriving first on the scene, to assist and co-ordinate rescue efforts. They have provided a vital function in saving the lives of people who work in the hazardous conditions of the North Sea, and the cancellation of their replacements will be of concern to many people. Whether it is in the oil and gas sector, the fishing industry or the growing offshore renewables industry, safety is the watchword of all those who work in the North Sea and anything that will diminish it is extremely concerning. I wonder whether support from those industries can be garnered in opposition to the proposals.
The two bases are of local and national importance and the threat that they are under is extremely worrying. Given that the UK’s defence footprint is already such that Scotland loses out on the proportion of military installations that it might reasonably expect, the further threatened losses are devastating.
The UK Government needs to end the damaging uncertainty over the future of RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Kinloss as soon as possible. It should accept just how important the bases are to people in Moray and across Scotland, where alternative employment is scarce and current wages in the area are among the lowest in the country.
17:39
I congratulate David Stewart on securing the debate, and I congratulate the people of Moray, its elected members, local officials, the community and its businesses on coming together in common cause to defend the community that is Moray and on defending the investment that they have all made in Moray with their efforts, time and capital.
Moray is a defence-sector oriented community, so the people there are prepared and able to defend and fight. The surprise is that the defence and fight that are needed are against their own UK Government and their own MOD. The further surprise is that the attack on their way of life has the potential to do very material damage, as it is a double whammy—the attack is on both RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth.
We heard in the debate that the damage could be considerable. We are talking about something in the region of 5,700 jobs—16 per cent of jobs in the area; the London equivalent would be something like 700,000—and about a financial impact of £150 million per year. We heard about RAF families who are embedded in Moray society and partners who work in schools and hospitals and in the private sector.
As Peter Peacock said, there are risks of unintended consequences and a cascade of further problems. David Stewart mentioned what happened in Dunoon, in my constituency. There is also the example of the RAF base at Campbeltown. We are still feeling the impact of those decisions more than a decade after they were taken.
Has work been carried out to identify how many family members work in the public services in the area and what impact their loss would have on service delivery locally?
I think that such work is being carried out by the task force. We will get a proper handle on the matter. There is a material issue. A straight pull-out from Kinloss would cause monumental disruption, as we heard. I very much welcome the task force and its focus on mitigating the impact by considering options. Mary Scanlon talked about the potential for an army base, for example. We need more options, more time and more effort from Government to mitigate the impact and backfill economic activity.
Amid the concern and uncertainty about Lossiemouth, the objective of keeping the RAF in Moray, holding on to the Tornadoes and protecting the base’s future is important. The submission to the task force that will go to London—which I know will have cross-party support; we will all be at the rally—is vital.
The irony is that this is happening at the hands of the Government and the MOD. We should compare and contrast the approach with what happens in the US, which operates on the ground with base personnel and communities, to understand and align with the community and to ensure that there are no job losses, so that the same number of jobs or more jobs are available as the transfer happens.
People have observed that the MOD treats personnel movements within the UK less sensitively than it treats the bringing of people back from overseas. In Germany there is a five-to-10-year conversation to mitigate the impact on Germany as well as on personnel, but the MOD is not speaking to the communities in Moray. It is breaching the compact with the community to which David Stewart and Jeremy Purvis referred in the context of the need for everyone to work together. The strong psychological contract that has existed for 70 years must be honoured.
We should consider the MOD’s behaviour in the context of what is happening in industry, where we find that companies that operated the economic model of thrashing the assets and being callous about the people are in big trouble, and more and more companies are moving to an approach in which they look after the people and build a strong alignment with the community.
Does the minister agree that although the scale of job losses in Moray would be devastating, all job losses are important to the individuals and families who are involved? Will he note concerns in Prestwick in Ayrshire, where 40 jobs on the Nimrod project at BAE Systems are under threat? When he considers measures to support Moray, will he please consider proportionate measures for Ayrshire?
The member’s point was well made. People are the issue, as members said time and again. Rob Gibson gave a poignant example of the impact on children, from his perspective as a former teacher.
We must tackle the system that creates the behaviour that we are witnessing. It is time for a rethink. In the 21st century, in a country that is populated by educated people who want and need a long-term compact between employers, employees, suppliers, shareholders and communities, we really need such a rethink. The strategic review, in its dialogue with the community, must recognise that the community is also the employers, employees, suppliers and shareholders. Taxpayers fulfil all those roles. That means that we need much more compassion and responsible action on the ground. Whether there is withdrawal from both bases or just from Kinloss, there must be responsible withdrawal, which migrates the economy onto a firm footing for the future.
There is lots of thinking about the need for Government, local government, agencies, the private sector, the voluntary sector and communities to work together to ensure that our communities are like resilient immune systems, which can take the knocks but are supported to get stronger and move forward. The MOD must come forward and play a full part in that.
I have heard that RAF personnel are not allowed to attend the rally on Sunday. That is deeply regrettable and flies in the face of democracy. We need to protect the integrity of the community by having everyone in the conversation in order that we can secure the best option. We will never concede defeat on this matter. We cannot let the MOD walk away from this. The economic development action plan that has already been worked on is important, but we need the missing stakeholders to be fully involved; the MOD and the UK Government need to be fully involved in this.
In countries such as the United States, there have been success stories in similar situations, with people coming together to reinvent communities and give them a purposeful mission beyond the elements that Mary Scanlon mentioned, and to consider meaningful alternatives. We have concerns about what might happen at Craigiehall, Fort George and elsewhere, so we need to pull together to ensure that we can do that in those cases, too.
I know that Sunday’s rally will be an emotional and poignant event, and that the experience that Rob Gibson had with the closure of the smelter in his area will be repeated. The RAF community in Moray is dependent on the RAF, and we need to ensure that the MOD rolls up its sleeves to ensure that the outcome of this situation is solid, gives the community a real future and brings in as many people as possible. We need the MOD to take as long as is necessary to ensure that the continuity that the people of Moray are entitled to expect after 70 years is achieved.
Meeting closed at 17:46.