Monday 4^th January

North Wiltshire MP James Gray has renewed his efforts to save RAF Lyneham by calling a 1 ½ hour Westminster Hall debate for Wednesday 6th January at 9.30am. Speaking in advance of the debate, which will be on the subject of 'The RAF Air Transport Fleet and RAF Lyneham,' Mr Gray said:

“I have called this debate not only because I am the local MP for RAF Lyneham which is threatened with closure , but also because in preparing for it, I have become more and more convinced that the Government is ignoring our real strategic and tactical Air Transport requirements in a number of decisions made over the last few years. So I will be calling for the whole question of our Air Transport Operations to become a central part of the Strategic Defence Review which is planned by both Parties after the General Election and for all further work or decision making to be suspended in the meantime.

In particular, I will ask ministers to consider and explain:-

• Whether or not the new cargo plane, the A400M, is really what we want and need, whether it will be ready in time to replace the ageing Hercules C130K fleet, and whether it is truly affordable given the heavily constrained Defence budgets;

• If they would not consider a cargo fleet consisting of C130Js and C-17s instead, and cancel the A400M;

• If they will set out the financial justifications for the co-location of all of the air transport fleet at RAF Brize Norton and the consequent closure of RAF Lyneham. In particular, they seem to me to have underestimated the cost of the works required at Brize, to have over-estimated the savings accruing from the closure of Lyneham, and to have no idea at all of the capital value of the site. (To which the Crichel Down rules which require it to be sold back to the original owners apply, and on which they is a potential huge liability for decontamination.);

• If they will explain how they intend to cram all of our air transport assets into Brize, which is considerably smaller than Lyneham and is already overcrowded;

• And what consideration they have given to the massive strategic risk of putting all of our air transport capabilities into one airport with one runway. Is that not a disaster waiting to happen?

My Gray continued: “All of these questions seem to me worthy of much deeper thought, which I hope will be given to them in the Strategic Defence Review. I will also of course be listening to the commitments which my colleague, Gerald Howarth, the Shadow Defence Minister who will be answering the debate will make, since it is quite possible that he will be the Defence Minister making the eventual decision.”