On 14 August 1989 Royal Marine Simeon Ferrante died from head injuries he received during parachute training at RAF Brize Norton. No one meant him to die, no one wanted him to die. It was an accident, but not necessarily an unavoidable accident. Accidents do happen and often no one individual is to blame. Bad luck, a coincidence of events, momentary inattention, an act of God—any or none of these could be the cause. In the armed services, where training must necessarily be tough and realistic, accidents sometimes result in severe injury or death. This is why in peacetime safety procedures have to be stringent.

Simeon Ferrante was a green beret Marine and all that that signifies. Young, fit, courageous and keen, he was proud, as a reservist, to have attained the accolade of the distinctive head gear. That pride he shared with his close-knit family and many friends, and when he was selected for parachute training by the royals he could not contain his excitement. On 7 August 1989, his first jump went badly. He landed heavily, and, explaining to his colleagues that he had hit his head on landing, he showed clear signs of cranial injury—lassitude, nausea, headaches, vomiting and lack of concentration. They were all noticed by the students and RAF staff on the course. He attended the sick bay, something that, as many of those present who have served in the armed forces will know, in that young male society is sometimes felt to be an admission of weakness, and therefore undertaken only in extremis.

Marine Ferrante was seen by a newly qualified RAF doctor, who was one week into his first tour of duty with the RAF. That doctor has said that Simeon did not say that he had sustained a head injury on that day, and I have no reason to doubt his word; and whether his diagnosis and treatment—a viral infection and painkillers—are open to question, I am not qualified to judge. Perhaps a more probing investigation would have saved Simeon's life—I do not know.

What is also noteworthy is that the RAF instructors took no action over the following two days when Marine Ferrante continued to show the same clear symptoms. Perhaps they did not understand the significance of those symptoms—which would indicate a gap in the training of the trainers—or perhaps they were satisfied that the medical staff were handling it. I do not know, I have no access to their evidence at the board of inquiry. What I do know is that if Simeon Ferrante showed the symptoms that the—as far as I am aware—uncontested evidence says he did, he should not have been allowed to continue jump training. But continue he did, and on the third jump, on 10 August 1989, he again landed heavily, swiftly lapsed into a coma and died.

Mr. and Mrs. Ferrante understood that their son's death was the result of that last jump, and a tragic, unavoidable accident. They mourned the waste of a life, but raised no queries, for neither the services nor the Ministry had mentioned the earlier heavy landing. This they found out by chance. Then they started to ask questions. What else was being kept from them? Was Simeon's death avoidable? What lessons could be learnt that might save others from the same grief that they were experiencing?

There were queries about safety equipment, the speed of response of the emergency services and medical training for parachute training instructors. There were doubts about the content and quality of evidence offered to the inquest, and real and understandable anger at the inconsiderate attitude of the RAF. The questions were many but the answers inadequate. I regret to say that Simeon's parents found the MOD unhelpful. They had to go to court to force the Ministry to provide answers. They may have to institute compensation proceedings, not for the money—it is clear that the balance of any award after costs will go to the Royal Marine Benevolent Fund—but in order to gain access to the facts.

Their experiences have led them to distrust the Ministry and that is partly the Ministry's fault, for the understandable climate of secrecy within the MOD is allowed to intrude into areas where it should have no place.

Of course, there are good reasons why the proceedings of boards of inquiry are classified, and I can think of three now. First, the proceedings may contain militarily sensitive information, but I suggest that that is not so in this case. Secondly, the privacy of proceedings encourages frank testimony, and that is always helpful. Thirdly, the facts that are disclosed at a board of inquiry may at some future date give rise to disciplinary action. However, their secrecy also creates problems. It is the MOD which decides what is disclosed, and by being at times unnecessarily secretive it gives the impression that it has something to hide even when it has not. It feeds the suspicion that secrecy is abused to cover up mistakes rather than keep secrets. That may be an entirely unworthy suspicion, but it is an understandable one, and one which does nothing but damage.

The families and the friends of those who are killed or injured need the reassurance of frankness to enable them to come to terms with their tragedy. Service men and their families would like the certainty of knowing that the faults that endangered their lives cannot be hidden under the cloak of secrecy and then ignored. There needs to be another way—a clearly independent way—of determining what should be disclosed when a board of inquiry is convened to investigate why a death or injury occurred in peacetime.

I shall suggest just one way in which that could be done. It could be by the appointment of a senior independent judge. He would comment on the terms of reference when a board was set up to examine a peacetime death or injury. He would be empowered to decide in what form and how much, and to whom, evidence from the board was disclosed. His aim would be the greatest possible frankness consistent with the nation's security and the rights of those who are involved in an inquiry. His recommendations could then be overruled only by a Minister, who in turn would be answerable to Parliament.

There may be a better way. It may be that tonight my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will suggest a better or different way. It is unlikely, however, that there could be a way more calculated to breed suspicion and thus damage the armed services than the one that we have now.

I believe that the Ferrante family has a right to the truth, even, or particularly, if it discloses negligence. The services have the right to expect that Ministers will not allow the fear of compensation costs to deter them from exposing those errors that make peacetime training unnecessarily hazardous. We all have the right to expect that those in the MOD or the services who deal with these sad cases have the compassion and sensitivity to put themselves in the position of the bereaved or that of the injured, and then to treat them as they themselves would wish to be treated.

We all understand that there are times when secrecy is essential. There are times, however, when it is unnecessary, unhelpful and cruel. The Ministry and my right hon. Friend are not unthinking, uncaring or unwilling to change. I hope that the case of Simeon Ferrante, tragically dead before his time, will be the spur that brings that change about.