Possible reprieve for HMS Gannet Search and Rescue

Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander, announced today (17th June) that certain projects approved in the reckless dying days of the previous UK government are to be cancelled and others suspended pending review.

There has been general relief that, among projects now to be reviewed, is the privatisation of the Search and Rescue (SAR) Service. This was to have been removed from its traditional delivery by the RAF, the Navy and the Coastguard and handed over to Soteria, a private sector consortium, at a contract price of £7 billion.

The project would have involved the closure of the Royal Navy’s SAR service, HMS Gannet, based at Prestwick and its replacement by a Soteria service operating out of Glasgow airport.

The planned privatisation was to involve all of the SAR services currently provided by the Royal Navy, the RAf and the Coastguard.

HMS Gannet provides both military and civil Search and Rescue (SAR) services and also provides a critical medical evacuation service to the Scottish islands and to remote rural communities.

In 2009 saw the HMS Gannet set a new record in responding to 447 call outs. This was 20% of the UK’s total military SAR call outs for that year and meant that,  for the second year in succession, Gannet was the busiest SAR base in the UK.

Unsurprisingly, it is fair to say that the Labour administration’s proposal to scrap the HMS Gannet unit and replace it with the unknown quantity of a new, untried and private sector service was greeted with a widespread concern that threatened to undermine the traditional trust in the SAR service.

The Coalition Government’s decisions on cancelled and suspended projects is part of its work in identifying cost savings in the urgent business of responding to the unprecedented financial deficit Britain now carries.

The photograph above, of a Royal Navy Sea King SAR helicopter, is by copyright holder Pajx and is in the public domain.