Heidi Alexander MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I recognise that Heathrow provides really important connectivity for our regional airports, and therefore for my hon. Friend’s constituents. I can assure her that I will keep the House updated, once both the internal review commissioned by Heathrow comes back and the report by NESO has been published.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Transport Committee, for her remarks. The airports national policy statement is a site-specific document, but I will reflect on her suggestion of a wider airports strategy; I am sure that we will discuss it further when I am in front of her Committee in a couple of weeks’ time.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I doubt that it necessarily follows that an expanded Heathrow that accommodated twice as many flights as it does currently would make an incident such as the one that we saw on Friday any more likely. This was an unprecedented fire of a significant scale. However, I can assure my hon. Friend that before making any decisions about the expansion of Heathrow, we will ensure that any proposals that may be forthcoming comply with all our legislative requirements.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I can categorically say that it would not be right for anyone or any business to capitalise on this disruption. Whether airlines or hotels, I would expect organisations to be doing everything they can to support travellers who have been disrupted by this incident.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I am not writing the terms of reference for the Kelly review, because it has been commissioned by Heathrow airport itself, and I hesitate to stand at the Dispatch Box and try to amend the terms of a private company’s review. The aviation Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), tells me that the right hon. Gentleman has written to him about this issue, and he is due to come back to him on it. The matter is also being considered by the aviation futures forum.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I think they are already doing that, because the review of resilience that was announced by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster last July is looking at the subject in the context of our critical national infrastructure.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  My understanding is that the grid is separate in Northern Ireland. I will take away the hon. Gentleman’s question and consider with colleagues the appropriate geographical scope of the NESO review. The terms of reference have not yet been finalised, so I will come back to him on that.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker, I am really very sorry, but I did not quite catch the question. If my hon. Friend would like to write to me, I will ensure I come back to him.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I do not think anyone underestimates the distress and disruption that this incident caused. Having spoken directly with Heathrow’s chief executive on a number of occasions, I know that he is fully aware of that. This is an unprecedented event of significant magnitude. Day in, day out, Heathrow successfully provides services to hundreds of thousands of passengers and businesses. While it is right that we do everything we can to interrogate the causes of this incident and learn any lessons, I believe that Heathrow airport can continue to be a trusted partner for Government in the longer term.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  Let me assure the hon. Lady that I am not putting all the country’s aviation eggs in one basket. At the moment we do not have proposals before us for a third runway at Heathrow. We will look at those proposals carefully when they are submitted and ensure that any decisions about either the airports national policy statement or any subsequent development consent order are taken in line with our environmental obligations on things such as carbon, air pollution and noise. Consideration of the resilience of the infrastructure will be part of that.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  All these risks are considered in the round, but if the hon. Lady wants to write to an appropriate Minister in another Department and copy me in, I would be happy to follow up on those discussions.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I can confidently say that as we transition to clean power, resilience will remain key in the delivery of our power network. I do not think that anything changes as a result of our determination to move to clean power, but I am happy to continue discussions with colleagues in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to make sure that that is the case.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  The relevant Energy Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), who is sitting next to me—was nodding, which suggests to me that he would be happy to have such a meeting.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for that question. I must admit that it is not a subject I have, to date, discussed with the chief executive of Heathrow, but I am happy to follow it up for the hon. Gentleman and come back to him.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tone of his comments. I assure him and other Members of this House that I will do everything I can to keep them updated, and I will continue the engagement I have had with Heathrow since the incident first became known to me. I spoke to the chief executive of Heathrow on Friday morning and again today. If my officials can do anything to assist those on the Opposition Front Bench in understanding this very serious issue, I am willing to facilitate any such meetings that the hon. Gentleman wishes to have. On the internal investigation that the London Heathrow board has commissioned Ruth Kelly to do, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I have asked to see a copy of that report. Assuming that I have the permission of Heathrow to share it more broadly, I am happy to share its contents with him and the House. On his question about whether I am content with and confident about the set-up for airport power supplies, I am not going to become an armchair electrical engineer; I want to see the report that has been commissioned by the airport and the report that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy has commissioned from NESO. We are also conducting a resilience review of critical national infrastructure via the Cabinet Office, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will look at any and all the issues that this incident raises in those reviews. I spoke with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy on Friday evening, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will continue to engage across Government on any of the issues that this incident raises.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement regarding the power outage, caused by a substation fire, that impacted on Heathrow airport operations on Friday 21 March. I begin by acknowledging the disruption to everyone affected by this incident. Many homes, schools and businesses temporarily lost power, some families have had to evacuate their homes, and many thousands have had their travel plans impacted. I thank the firefighters and emergency responders who worked in difficult conditions to put the fire out, as well as Heathrow, the National Grid and all the other public services involved for working so hard to get power back on and people back travelling again. This was an unprecedented event, and we must learn any and all lessons we can to ensure that it does not recur. Let me begin by setting out what we currently know about the cause of the incident. A large fire broke out at North Hyde substation at 11.30 pm on Thursday 20 March, and was brought under control the following day. Due to the impacts, Heathrow airport announced at 4.30 am on Friday that it would close until midnight that day. Power was restored to domestic customers in a matter of hours, after the operator of the local distribution network, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, redistributed power through other parts of the network. By comparison, Heathrow is one of the country’s biggest consumers of electricity and requires as much power as a small city. What we know is that there was an unprecedented outage, and that it was not the result of a single point of failure on the electricity transmission or distribution system. The feed from North Hyde substation is one of three supply points to Heathrow, and the fire caused exceptional damage that took the whole substation out of service. The other supply points continued supplying to Heathrow airport throughout the incident. Heathrow’s view was that that supply was insufficient to ensure the safe and secure ongoing operation of all systems across the whole airport. It proceeded to reconfigure its internal electricity network to enable the resumption of full operations, utilising the other two external supply points. That required hundreds of systems to be safely powered down, and then safely powered up, with extensive testing. The airport has a range of back-up generators and uninterruptible power supplies, including diesel generators, to provide power to essential systems to enable them safely to land planes. Those back-up systems ensured that safety and security systems and protocols were maintained at all times, but they were never designed to support full operation of the whole airport. By 2.30 on Friday afternoon, Heathrow began restarting systems to ensure that they were safely operating. By 4 pm, the airport was 100% confident that all systems were safely operating across the whole network, and announced that some flights would be able to restart that day. The first flights, from about 6 pm, were so-called positioning flights, which were to get aircraft and crew to the right places to resume normal operations the following day. That was followed by flights diverted to UK and non-UK airports, to allow passengers to be repatriated, and a small number of outbound long-haul flights. Since Saturday, Heathrow has been fully operational, with more than 250,000 passengers able to fly to and from the airport on Saturday. Due to knock-on impacts of the event, there continued to be some delays and cancellations over the weekend. Overall, the impact of Heathrow’s closure led to over 1,300 flights and more than 200,000 passengers having their flights cancelled or diverted on Friday, and a further 110 cancelled on Saturday. The Government are acutely aware of the need to ensure that passengers are well looked after and their consumer rights protected. This is why UK law ensures that airlines must provide passengers with a refund within seven days, or passengers must be rerouted to their destination under the same conditions. We are closely monitoring to ensure that passengers are properly supported. To support the recovery, my Department temporarily lifted restrictions on overnight flights, to ease congestion. Heathrow and airlines also added extra capacity into the system to help affected passengers. We allowed rail tickets to be used flexibly to help passengers who were not able to use their original tickets. Regarding the cause of the fire, the Metropolitan police confirmed that the fire is not believed to be suspicious. However, due to the location of the substation and the impact that this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s counter terrorism command is leading our inquiries into this matter. This is due to the specialist resources and capabilities within that command, which can assist in progressing the investigation at pace to help minimise disruption and identify the cause. It would not be appropriate to comment further while these investigations continue, but we will of course update the House once it is appropriate to do so. Although it is positive that electricity supplies were restored quickly, there will be learnings to ensure that we avoid such incidents reoccurring. That is why on Saturday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, working with Ofgem, commissioned the independent National Energy System Operator to urgently investigate the incident. The review will also seek to understand any wider lessons to be learned for energy resilience for critical national infrastructure. NESO has been asked to report back to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero with initial findings within six weeks. In addition, Heathrow has asked Ruth Kelly, a former Secretary of State for Transport and an independent member of Heathrow’s board, to undertake a review of its internal resilience. The Kelly review will analyse the robustness and execution of Heathrow’s crisis management plans, the airport’s response, and how it recovered the operation. Colleagues across the House will appreciate that we do not yet know everything there is to know about the incident, but I will try to answer questions from hon. Members in as much detail as possible based on the latest information I have at my disposal. I commend the statement to the House.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  Airlines are responsible for providing passengers with a refund within seven days, or to be re-routed to their destination under the same conditions, with required suitable accommodation and food. That is the airlines’ responsibility. We have advertised the rights of passengers via the Civil Aviation Authority in recent days to ensure that people are aware. Those are the provisions that exist within our law to compensate people who have been affected by this type of disruption.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  This was an unprecedented event and Heathrow stood up its resilience plans swiftly. Within 18 hours of the fire starting, planes were once again landing at the airport. For an airport the size of Heathrow, that is no mean feat. It is right both that an internal review of the airport crisis management and resilience plans takes place, and that the Government have commissioned the review that will be conducted by NESO.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. The question of Heathrow expansion and this very rare—unprecedented—event are two entirely separate issues. He will be aware that the Government have invited Heathrow to bring forward proposals for a third runway, and we will review the airports national policy statement after that. With regard to back-up capacity at airports, I am told that the back-up power systems at Heathrow operated as they should have done during this incident—they did not fail. I do not want to come to knee-jerk conclusions as a result of this unprecedented incident, but we will be looking very closely at the two reviews I mentioned in my statement. I have also worked with the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure that passengers who have been affected by this disruption are aware of their rights.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that commitment.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is tempting me to make a whole series of interesting comments about Stansted. I can assure him that when we get the reviews back, we will look at their implications for other airports, including Stansted, which provides employment for a number of his constituents.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, in addition to the conversations I had with the chief executive of Heathrow, I was updated throughout the weekend by my officials on what was happening at the airport. I am happy to write to him about the wider point he raises.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government will do everything in their power to learn the lessons from this incident and ensure that our critical national infrastructure is protected and resilient as we move forward.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend raises a fair point. I will ensure that we provide that information to him once we have reviewed the different reports that are going to be published over the next couple of months.