R.A.F. STATION, WEST DRAYTON (Hansard, 27 April 1967)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force (Mr. Merlyn Rees)
An anonymous letter, addressed to the Commanding Officer at West Drayton, was received yesterday morning which said that plastic explosives had been placed in three positions in the main buildings and were timed to explode on Wednesday or Thursday.
At R.A.F., West Drayton, construction and installation work is going on for what is known as Linesman/Mediator, the joint civil and military air traffic control system for the United Kingdom. The military side of the system is not operational: part of the civil side is operational.
A decision was taken to evacuate two of the main buildings immediately. The third train building, which houses part of the London Air Traffic Control Centre was not evacuated, since this could not have been done without disrupting civil air traffic operations.
A search was conducted in the course of yesterday which covered the London Air Traffic Control Centre as well as the R.A.F. buildings. An Army bomb disposal unit took part in the search. Nothing was found. A further and more detailed search is now in progress. The police have been informed and are conducting investigations.
The buildings are still evacuated. It is intended to resume normal work tomorrow.

§ Mr. Ryan
I thank my hon. Friend for that Statement, and the urgency with which he personally dealt with the problem. Perhaps I might ask three questions. First, will my hon. Friend give a guarantee that the inspection will continue for at least another few days to make sure that this was not a baseless hoax?
Secondly, will he comment on the possible dangers to the civilian population, in what is a densely populated area, of plastic explosives being on this base?
Finally, will he tell the House his view of the adequacy of the Press liaison which was maintained with the Ministry, in view of the fact that one London newspaper, at least, contained a statement, attributed to the Ministry, that a bomb had been discovered? This caused a great deal of consternation in the locality.

§ Mr. Rees
I visited the Royal Air Force Station at West Drayton this morning. The building is under construction, and things there are very difficult. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I saw the anonymous letter. It was written like a crossword puzzle, being made up of bits. It is probably a hoax. It says that the danger was yesterday and today. All I can say is that tomorrow morning the work will continue on the construction of the building which has been evacuated.
I assure my hon. Friend—I spoke to the bomb disposal people—that there is no danger at all to civilians outside the Royal Air Force station. I have looked into the statement to the Press, and I assure my hon. Friend that no statement came from the Ministry of Defence that a bomb had been found.

§ Sir Ian Orr-Ewing
Can the hon. Gentleman assure us that in view of the vital importance of these computers, which eventually will control both military and civilian traffic, emergency arrangements will be available at short notice should a disaster of fire, or accident, or even sabotage, occur in the future?

§ Mr. Rees
It will be two or three years before this very expensive and sophisticated complex to control military and civilian air traffic is completed. Arrangements will be made so that if something of that kind happens flying will be able to continue, but, given the nature of it, there is no doubt that if anything happened there flying control would be limited at least to some degree, because one would not have use of the resources there.

§ Sir Harmar Nicholls
On a point of order. How can an anonymous letter provide the basis for a special Parliamentary Answer? I would have thought that the Members concerned ought to have conducted the investigation privately at this stage, without taking up Parliamentary time.

§ Mr. Speaker
It is a Private Notice Question, which is a matter for Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. C. Pannell
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is, of course, a matter for your unfettered discretion, but 1827 in so far as this has proved to be completely hypothetical, and an absolute nonevent, although your decision was given in good faith, I wonder whether, as the history of Private Notice Questions shows that so many of them have been refused, you would reconsider the matter.

§ Mr. Speaker
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I consider this matter every day. Every day I receive requests for Private Notice Questions. The House has given me a discretion. It is not an easy task, but I try to carry it out to the best of my ability.