0:00
Did you know anything about this when you were head of the Defence Select Committee
0:04
No, I didn't. And it would have been useful, I think, to have had the committee informed on Privy Council terms
0:11
so we could offer perhaps an outsider's view as to how this is unfolding
0:17
So I do hope this is one of the questions that various committees, including the current Defence Committee, will ask
0:23
Why were they excluded on Privy Council terms from what was going on
0:29
given the severity of this incident. But that would have broken the super injunction, wouldn't it
0:33
even on Privy Council terms? It is, and you've just been discussing the value of that super injunction
0:41
There are many questions to be answered here. It's now all coming out. I hope perhaps the government will come out with a single statement
0:48
to say that's it, there's no more drip feed, and qualify that a full investigation will reveal exactly what happened
0:58
there are huge lessons to be learned but i can i offer a perhaps a an alternative view on all this
1:05
i've had a long time to think about this um of course we want answers this is huge but calling
1:11
for a public scout scalp as some people have been saying i say is wrong that's not just diminish the
1:16
scale of the damage here the flawed decisions that then followed this incident ranks amongst
1:21
the most serious operational errors in recent military history without modern parallel but it
1:26
shone a light on how poor we are in responding to human error. Errors will be made in a fast-moving
1:35
dangerous environment, especially when conducting tasks with no historic precedent, no playbook
1:41
But when things go wrong too often the instinct is in government in Whitehall departments and by extension individuals is not to confront failure when it happens but to cover it up to deflect uh fear of embarrassment takes precedence over institutional learning
1:56
and you look at this it's not just uh this particular incident nimrod go back there ajax
2:01
the aircraft carriers the cost of that uh delays tossed overruns modeled oversight no one admitting
2:09
mistakes and this isn't just the mad as well i mean think of the post office scandal windrush
2:13
debacle, that A-level algorithm fiasco as well. Early warnings were ignored, problems denied
2:20
internal whistleblowers sidelined, and a culture of bureaucratic inertia. And then, how could you describe it? Legal defensiveness then takes root. That's what we saw in this case
2:31
as well. Expensive failures because of delayed justice. And of course, this erodes public trust
2:38
And there is another way of doing this. It's not helped, by the way, by Parliament itself
2:42
wanting a scalp to, you know, you want a minister to fall on their sword. They must be
2:50
they're not personally negligent, but there's calls for resignations so as to draw a line
2:56
under this. But often, whilst it might move on, the ultimate problem there remains. And I've just
3:02
come back, sorry to extend this, but I just come back from RAF Fairford yesterday, and the RAF
3:08
have a very different culture here, a progressive, structured approach of managing human error
3:14
Error is not viewed as a personal failure, but as an inevitable feature of operating in complex
3:20
high-pressure environments. Personnel are encouraged to report straight away if something goes wrong, so they can learn collectively. They can then build resilience through shared insight
3:31
and that clearly did not happen here So I just offer a wider perspective here as to how we should actually approach this and learn from this There a culture that sits behind what happened here And unless you address that I afraid all this is probably going to happen again
3:46
Well, that's the problem, isn't it? Because we don't know if the failure has been addressed
3:50
We do know that the person who did this, and I'm sure they didn't mean to do it
3:54
but they did it nonetheless. We know that they're still in a job somewhere in the Minister
3:59
of Defence or in the Armed Forces. That's all that we know. We don't know if Ben Wallace
4:03
that the minister at the time, or Grant Shapps, his successor, insisted on measures being implemented
4:09
to make sure it didn't happen again. I mean, I'm not sure what level of detail we would ever know about that
4:15
but there's been no reassurance that systems have been put in place to make sure that all of these records wouldn't be on a single Excel file
4:22
and that they couldn't be emailed to a lot of people. Now, you'd have thought that would have been the first thing
4:26
that they would have done, and I don't think there's any security element
4:31
that prevents them from actually saying that. But neither of them have said that
4:37
No. And again, this is absolutely to be investigated now. I think there's now three Commons committees looking at this
4:44
I don't understand why a single database was created, which also had wannabe applications
4:50
random afghans who simply weren't trying to get out of the country, but had little connection with the international community
4:55
with NATO, and therefore no justification for them to actually even put an application in
5:00
they were mixed up with judges with translators and with those special forces afghan special forces
5:06
that i would think are part of the group that the actual our own sf were trying to look look for and
5:11
help so there absolutely were some administrative areas that need to be looked at but i go back to
5:17
my point there is when we're doing something look at afghanistan sorry ukraine they're constantly
5:23
having to learn in a fast environment human error is made all the time but if you have this culture where if you do cock up if you do make a mistake you not encouraged to come forward the question i have is how long was this known by the individual and by the inner team and did they feel fearful for even
5:41
sharing it knowing of the consequences and when it was then picked up by the mod they themselves
5:47
then decided to sit on this as well and i think that was wrong too but of course the individual
5:51
would have been fearful. It's a natural human reaction. I mean, we've all been in a situation
5:56
where we've got that empty feeling in the pit of our stomach thinking, oh my God, did I just do that
6:02
And then you start thinking, well, what do I do about it? And it's a natural human reaction
6:07
maybe not to do what you probably should do and fess up to it immediately
6:12
You probably do try to cover it up in the first instance. And that's my point I'm trying to say
6:18
The RAF themselves, uniquely in our MOD, and I think across NATO as well, have pursued what they call a just culture
6:27
is where that if you do make a mistake, they manage the human error. So it's shared immediately
6:33
rather than something, the fear that your scalp will then be had, or you'll be in huge trouble
6:39
Of course, if there is gross negligence, you know, if there is something completely wrong
6:43
that person needs to be held to account. But we need to understand, and I stress, when there is
6:48
no playbook, when we've never ventured down this road before, when we're working in
6:51
high-pressure, complex environments, we must understand that these individuals are under huge pressure
6:58
What then happens, unfortunately, the current culture is, the cover-up, what takes
7:04
over after that, actually compounds the entire problem. That's what we're seeing
7:08
here, and that's quite rightly, while you're asking these now difficult questions
7:11
what happened after? Tobias, thank you very much indeed. That's Tobias Elwood there, former Conservative
7:16
Defence Minister and former Chair of the Defence Select Committee
