When one considers the recent disasters overseen by that government department, he maybe overstating the gravity of the Lyneham closure.
A secret internal report on the department’s current difficulties, recently leaked to the media prompted the comment (Western Daily Press, August 24) from the shadow defence spokesman Liam Fox that “It had exposed the government’s and MOD’s ‘serial incompetence’ in allowing a £35billion ‘black hole’ in the department’s budget".
This follows on from the Hercules aircraft tragedy, the incredible nine year moth balling of eight Chinook helicopters (desperately needed in times of war); and the Scrooge-like argument over compensation paid to our armed force’s casualties. The MOD was also lambasted by British judges in July this year over the availability of evidence in claims of abuse of Iraqi detainees.
Not very good press to be sure but, alas, these catastrophes are only par for the course - a course going back to at least 1984. In those far off days, the head of procurement at the MOD, Gordon Foxley earned £25k per annum. That particular civil servant lived in a six-bedroom pile, with a swimming pool, that backed on to a golf course at Henley-on-Thames. He also had a house in Wiltshire and a fleet of cars, including a Rolls Royce.
In 1994 he was jailed for four years for taking £1.3 million in bribes which had passed through his Swiss bank accounts – this while he was running a defence consultancy business. In all he was the owner of seven houses, yet still received £160,000 in legal aid at his trial which ordered he stay in prison for afurther three years if he didn’t repay £1.5 million within 11 months.
Eleven years on, the MOD “discovered” that he had repaid nothing. It was then too late to enforce the order. In considering Lyneham’s future, it is surely correct to consider the above tale to allow understanding of the apparently endemic and never-ending failings of the department.
Maybe they have missed the following facts too, which to my mind suggest that Lyneham could, and should, be easily saved while making considerable Government savings in these straitened times. The facts would appear to be thus: Lyneham is a fully operational air base capable of handling the largest of troop carrying aircraft. Contrast its closure with that of the proposed reopening of the currently unoccupied RAF Innsworth base situated only 30miles from Lyneham as the Hercules flies. This news, reported by the WDP on August 15, 2008 ,suggests that the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) will move to the base in 2010 bringing hundreds of troops and their families to the area.
Some £33 million has been pledged to update the base. The impression given is that its future function will not merely be an administrative one. As I understand it, RAF Innsworth has no runway so one might be surely excused for asking how “rapid” will the Rapid Reaction Corps be in moving to trouble spots within its ambit.
A move from the current base in Rheindalen in Germany seems completely counter intuitive too. Probable delays in deployment, causing maybe more deaths as a result, seems an obvious consequence of the choice of base. There would appear to be very few potential trouble spots west of Gloucester that would benefit from Innsworth’s proximity -pirates in the Irish Sea maybe?
In short, if the ARRC must be housed in the West of England, Lyneham with its runway would seem a blindingly obvious first choice for any new NATO base; surely Wootton Bassett deserves no less. Maybe MPs for the respective sites might be encouraged to relate to us the reasoning behind what, at face value, appear to be quite bizarrely illogical conclusions by the ministry and which are scheduled to take effect in what is otherwise expected to be a period of uncommon austerity.
This article appeared in a slightly different form in the WDP, written by Roger Gough, not me!
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