The Royal Navy and RAF currently operate ageing Sea King helicopters

Controversial plans to privatise Britain’s search and rescue helicopters have collapsed and police are investigating irregularities in the bid.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond announced today that the Government had been made aware that commercially sensitive information had been obtained by one of the companies involved in the consortium chosen to run the £7bn scheme.

It would not be appropriate, Mr Hammond said, for the bid to go ahead.

The Soteria consortium had been chosen as the preferred bidder to run Britain’s search and rescue helicopters, currently operated by the RAF, Royal Navy and Coastguard. The ageing Sea Kings used by the RAF and Royal Navy are viewed as nearing the end of their operational life.

Last month, grough reported that  RBS, one of the companies in the consortium, had pulled out, jeopardising the plans.

And today, the minister confirmed the plans, known officially as SAR-H and drawn up by the previous Labour Government, were on hold.

Mr Hammond said: “In mid-December, the preferred bidder in the SAR-H competition, Soteria, voluntarily came forward to inform the Government of irregularities regarding the conduct of their bid team which had only then recently come to light.

“The irregularities included access by one of the consortium members, CHC Helicopter, to commercially sensitive information regarding the joint Ministry of Defence-Department for Transport project team’s evaluations of industry bids and evidence that a former member of that project team had assisted the consortium in its bid preparation, contrary to explicit assurances given to the project team.

“Since December, our two departments have been working with Soteria to better understand the situation and its implications for the procurement process.

“In addition, the Ministry of Defence Police are investigating how the commercially sensitive information came to be in the possession of the bidder. It would be inappropriate to comment further on the details of the investigation until it has finished.

“However, even without the outcome of that investigation, the Government has sufficient information to enable it to conclude that the irregularities that have been identified were such that that it would not be appropriate to proceed with either the preferred bid or with the current procurement process.”

Mr Hammond said the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence would now consider the potential options for search and rescue helicopters, including options to maintain continuity of search and rescue helicopter cover until new longer term arrangements can be put in place.
An announcement would be made in due course, he said.

Up to 50 per cent of the operations of some search and rescue helicopter bases involves mountain incidents, and 90 per cent of mission in the UK are on civilian rescues.