Did Prince William shoot down Brit plans to use S92s for search and rescue?
Prince William lobbied PM to save RAF search-and-rescue
The Prince is an RAF search-and-rescue pilot and his intervention last month appears to have had some success. In a highly unusual move, Downing Street sources revealed the approach after the Prime Minister hinted at royal involvement in the process.
It emerged that Prince William talked to Mr Cameron about the issue while the two men were in Zurich as part of England’s 2018 World Cup bid team. At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Cameron was pressed on planned changes to the air-sea rescue and coastguard services.
He told MPs: “I have been lobbied extensively about air and sea rescue, including by people from all walks of life if I can put it that way.”
That tantalising answer was enough to force Downing Street sources to disclose that Prince William had spoken to Mr Cameron. The Ministry of Defence and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency provide a 24-hour military and civil helicopter search-and-rescue service from 12 bases around the country. The service is provided by the RAF, the Royal Navy and a civilian helicopter service.
Under the Coalition’s plans, the service would be privatised – with RAF, Navy and Coastguard crews replaced by pilots employed by a private company in a multi-billion pound deal.
Prince William, 28, is based at RAF Valley, on Anglesey, north Wales. His daily duties include supporting mountain rescue, the coastguard and air ambulance services.
Over Christmas, he was part of a mission in which the helicopter he was flying was diverted to pick up a life support machine and transport specialist staff from Leicester to Manchester to try to help Sarah Bowden, 20, who was suffering from swine flu while pregnant.
Despite the emergency mission, she died 11 days after the birth of her son Harry.
Prince William’s determined intervention on behalf of the search-and-rescue service seems to have been at least partly successful.
Two weeks after the Prince and Mr Cameron spoke in Switzerland, transport ministers postponed an announcement about the planned sell-off. The reason given was that the preferred bidder, a consortium made up of Sikorsky, Thales, CHC Helicopter and Royal Bank of Scotland, said it had become aware of a “possible issue” in connection with its bid. Under the plan, the group, known as Soteria, would take over responsibility from the RAF, with Sikorsky providing its S92 helicopters and Thales supplying the electronics.
A St James’s Palace spokesman refused to confirm whether Prince William had lobbied the Prime Minister on the future of the Search and Rescue Force, adding: “We never comment on conversations that might or might not have happened between the Prime Minister and members of the Royal family.
“The Prince is a serving officer in the Royal Air Force and he will follow any orders or changes that may or may not happen in the future.”
Strict protocol forbids politicians from discussing conversations they have had with members of the Royal family, and even a hint from a prime ministerial aide about topics that have been discussed will meet with strong disapproval among courtiers.
The Prime Minister’s weekly audiences with the Queen are not attended by civil servants or courtiers and the Queen was reported to have been unimpressed with Tony Blair’s decision to reveal in his memoirs snippets of the conversation he had with her when he was first invited to form a government.
The Prince of Wales is known to have lobbied politicians or their advisers in the past, but his interventions have come to light through leaked documents or court papers, rather than from politicians.
Last year, it emerged that the Prince of Wales had expressed strong opinions about the proposed redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks in west London during a meeting with Sir Simon Milton, the deputy mayor of London.
The £3 billion plan was scrapped by Qatari Diar, the Qatari royal family’s development company, after the Prince complained to senior Qatari royals.
S-92 Facts 