Dai Havard

Labour Party | Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney

Mountain Rescue

Dai Havard our local MP has recently been meeting the Prime Minister to ask him for some financial support for Mountain Rescue and Search Teams such as our local Central Beacon Team. 

A couple of years ago Dai started an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Mountain Rescue and Search teams.  Dai said I was very surprised that one didn’t already exist as these groups contribute so much and benefit so many. The purpose of All Party Groups is to raise awareness and help groups in communicating with government departments.

I am the Group Secretary and Lord Inglewood of Hutton-in-the-Forrest is the Chairman the Vice Chair is Betty Williams MP for Conwy and Roger Williams MP for Brecon and Radnorshire is the Treasurer. The nature of All Party Groups is that they cross all political parties and both Houses of Parliament and I’m pleased to say we have had plenty of support from Wales.

The fact that an All Party Group didn’t exist for these Teams in part sums up some of their problems. The Teams are all volunteers who do not have the public profile and historical funding of groups like the RNLI. The public profile of the Teams just isn’t high enough and the Teams are so professional they are often assumed to be one of the emergency services with people not realising  they are volunteers.

The Teams are very professional and train very hard for rescues on mountains but they also turn out to assist the Police in searching for missing persons in all sorts of location including urban areas.  In the last couple of weeks, locally, we have seen the Team assisting the Ambulance Service get people to and from hospital in the wintry conditions that affected us. 

All of this is done on a voluntary basis in their own time and often at considerable financial costs to the team members who have to provide the majority of their own equipment. The Teams owe their existence to this generous contribution by their members and support this with fundraising. Generally the public have been very supportive but there is a growing number of organisations who the public are asked to give to and so there is a limit as to how much can be raised through collection boxes.

The Teams need to maintain a central base, specially equipped off-road vehicles, medical equipment such as specialist stretchers and state of the art’ communication equipment to communicate with the other services and the military.  Insurance for the members is another very expensive yet vital element to the work of the Teams. The Teams want to remain volunteers but they do need some help with funding as they are being called on more and more.

Talking about the purpose behind the meeting with the Prime Minister Dai said the All Party Group has raised the ability of Teams to claim Lottery money and progress has been made so Teams can now apply for Big Lottery grants. However, we believe it is time that the government make a contribution towards the running costs of the Teams in England and Wales as they give so much support to a number of government departments and agencies for free. 

A few weeks ago I was drawn to ask a question at Prime Ministers Question Time (a true lottery in Parliament and one I have only won 5 times in 6 years). I thought this would be a great opportunity to raise the profile of the All Party Group and the Mountain Rescue and Search Teams and asked the Prime Minister to meet us.

I am pleased to say he agreed and a delegation from the All Party Group and the Mountain Rescue Council met him recently to present a report and a claim for support.  We took Biscuit the search dog from Yorkshire and spent an hour in Downing Street being interviewed by the press. I believe the Prime Minister now understands the work of the Teams much better and knows how much they do to support the work of a number of government departments. The PM asked how many times Teams get called out. The answer is our local Team was called out over seventy times last year. More than once a week for free is worth money! The PM has charged his officials to look at the Mountain Rescue Council for England and Wales request for £4million pounds and I will now chase them to ensure a positive result. 

Penny Brockman said “I felt the meeting was quite positive. Mr Blair was interested to hear of the diverse work Mountain Rescue now does and the lack of Government financial support”  “We were also able to raise the matter of a wide variation in the personal accident insurance cover provided by the police. We were really shocked two years ago to find that we had been flying in Search and Rescue helicopters without insurance.  One minute it was there, the next minute it was not, and no one told us it had been withdrawn. Here in South Wales, this still remains an issue and we cannot fly on helicopters.

Peter Howells OBE, Team Leader of Central Beacons MRT said, “I was very pleased to be able to support the All Party Parliamentary Group by sending a Team Land Rover and Equipment to London to be involved in the publicity filming. I fully support the efforts of the All Party Group to secure a more stable funding base for all the Mountain and Cave Rescue teams in England and Wales”.

“Many people think that because the teams have such a professional approach and high standards, and are a 999 emergency service that we are employed, but the whole service is manned by unpaid volunteers and is supported by only £43,000 of government grant aid for the 73 organisations in England and Wales”. This does not go very far!  

Pic 1 Dai with Mark Moran and Peter Howells OBE of the Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team outside Downing Street.

Pic 2 Dai with other members of the APPG meeting the Prime Minister with Penny Brockman member of the Central Beacons Team and Treasurer of the Mountain Rescue Council of England and Wales and David Allen Chairman of the MRC