Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review

Debate between Earl Russell and Earl of Courtown

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I also thank NESO for its swift and diligent work. The findings of the report are deeply concerning. It is clear, as the Minister said, that National Grid failed to address a known issue for over seven years—a failure that is simply inexcusable.

The central lesson from the Heathrow blackout is the vital role that critical national infrastructure plays in ensuring both our energy security and our national security. Shortly after the incident at Heathrow, events in Spain and Portugal served as a stark warning of what can happen when energy systems are left vulnerable. Public transport was brought to a standstill, payment systems collapsed, and millions were left unable to cook, travel or contact their loved ones.

In the case of North Hyde, the blackout disrupted schools, the London Underground and Hillingdon Hospital, and affected nearly 70,000 customers, some of whom were forced to leave their homes. That is the very real cost of neglecting our energy resilience. Let us be clear: this Government are jeopardising our energy security. We are deeply fortunate to be a country surrounded by our own gas fields, yet instead of using these domestic resources, the Government have chosen to rely on imports, including gas imported from the very same North Sea fields that they are barring Britain from accessing. We are seeing gas wells filled with concrete, contingency options dismissed and our energy independence systematically dismantled. In the light of growing geopolitical instability, what steps will the Government take to strengthen the resilience of our energy infrastructure?

What assessment has been made of how our current energy targets increase our reliance on Chinese imports? Just last year, our intelligence services warned of Chinese state-backed cyber operations aimed at disrupting critical infrastructure in the event of conflict. At the same time, the Government are racing to tie our energy future to Chinese technology, from solar panels and rare earths to batteries. We have already witnessed China restrict the export of key minerals in its trade dispute with the United States. We have seen reports of kill switches in Chinese-manufactured inverters, and US intelligence has flagged the potential presence of surveillance devices in Chinese wind turbines. Why are we, in effect, handing over the keys to our energy future to the Chinese?

I turn to the findings of the report. Will the Minister confirm who at National Grid made the decision to delay critical maintenance on the transformer in 2022 and how they will be held accountable? What are the penalties for breaching licence conditions, and what enforcement mechanisms will be used? The report, as the Minister said, reveals that the North Hyde site failed to meet modern standards for physical barriers between transformers. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government have instructed National Grid to review all substations with older transformers that predate current safety requirements?

Finally, with global tensions rising and the risk to infrastructure increasing, what are the Government doing to ensure the long-term resilience of our energy system? We want a clean energy future, one powered by nuclear, small modular reactors and the next wave of British innovation, but above all we need energy that is secure, affordable and reliable. This Government are making us increasingly dependent on foreign imports, all the while turning their back on British resources. I urge the Minister to return to this House with a clear plan for safeguarding the resilience and sovereignty of the UK’s energy supply.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we are very grateful to NESO for the final report on this catastrophic power failure that shut down Heathrow, and we note the deeply concerning findings. A single point of failure detected years ago should not have been able to shut down our largest airport. This was a major incident. Heathrow closed for 16 hours; 1,300 flights were cancelled, impacting 270,000 passengers; and 70,000 domestic users had their energy cut. This presents a valuable learning opportunity, so I thank the Government for the terms of reference and NESO for its excellent and comprehensive report. The quality of the work here shows just how well NESO is establishing itself as a new organisation and how it is adding value.

To summarise, the report found critical maintenance not done for seven years; older transformers in situ not compliant with modern regulations, allowing the fire to spread; any number of possible further unknown maintenance issues; and possible National Grid licence breaches. Heathrow has three independent feeds from the grid but has configured its internal network in such a way that losing just one feed closed the airport. National Grid, in turn, was not aware of Heathrow’s vulnerability and that it was critical national infrastructure. Broken systems and poor communications between organisations come on top of years of underinvestment, both in our grid infrastructure and in our critical national resilience more generally.

These findings are particularly concerning as they come just before the massive period of transition, as we are about to invest over £70 billion before 2030 in achieving clean power. We also face increasing impacts from climate change itself and increasing external threats, from cyberattacks to attacks on our undersea cables, further impacting our national resilience. The report reveals a catalogue of serious failings, the most damaging of which was a catastrophic failure to recognise the imminent fault in the transformer in 2018, the failure to take appropriate action, and further mis-maintenance in 2022. This led directly to the fire. The substation, built in 1968, would have worked well had it been maintained, but it was not positioned in a way that met with modern design standards, which meant that once the fire started, it spread.

The Minister in the other place said that National Grid would look at maintenance backlogs and that he hoped to get an update by the end of last week, so I ask the Minister: are the Government clearer on the scale of any further maintenance backlogs that exist? Heathrow understood its power supply vulnerability yet deemed it low-risk and decided not to do anything about it. What is the Government’s position on this continuing vulnerability at Heathrow Airport? The Minister talked about an opportunity for Heathrow to fix its systems, but surely the Government need to go further before we expand Heathrow, and make sure that Heathrow’s power systems are fit for purpose.

Alarmingly, the energy system operators, including National Grid, were not aware that Heathrow was critical national infrastructure and did not understand the impacts of the interruption to one of its power supply points. This lack of joined-up thinking and awareness across critical sectors is a grave concern, so I hope that the Government will ensure that energy network operators are fully aware of all the critical national infrastructure customers that they have and the impacts of potential supply operations. Will a mandatory cross-sector communication and operation protocol be established to help resolve these problems? The critical national infrastructure people and the power supply people need to be talking to each other. That this really has to be resolved is one of the key things to come out of this.

Further, what concrete steps will the Government take to mandate a comprehensive review of all the substations to make sure that they fit modern design standards and are sited appropriately? I know the Minister is in conversations with National Grid and with Ofgem. I welcome the commitments in the Statement before us today, but when do the Government expect the Ofgem report to be published, and how will the Minister and the Government further update this House once that has been completed? If further National Grid failures come to light, how will those be resolved, and how will National Grid be held to account if further backlogs of maintenance come to light?

I welcome the inclusion of transformers. I note that there is a 12- to 24-month wait for these things. They are crucial to our transition to net zero, so I welcome that that was done. I call on the Government to do more to update Parliament on the transition to net zero and to produce an annual report on our energy resilience and our transition to net zero.

Finally, this is a valuable learning opportunity, but for the Government to learn, this report needs to not sit on a shelf. We have had other reports about energy resilience, and we have had Mighty Oak, so can the Minister reassure me about the actions the Government will take to ensure that lessons are learned and actions are taken, across the sectors, to improve communication and improve our resilience? We all know that if this stuff goes wrong, the lights go out for everybody and that causes problems, so we do need to act on these things, but I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement.

COP 29

Debate between Earl Russell and Earl of Courtown

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I must acknowledge that, for the past 14 years, the UK has been a global leader in this area. We are the only major economy to have halved carbon emissions since 1990. In that time, the US’s emissions have stayed the same and China’s have tripled. In fact, we account for just 1% of global emissions. Despite this, we have seen that other countries are not persuaded just because the United Kingdom is going further and faster than others; they are persuaded by living standards and prosperity.

At COP, the Secretary of State announced a new target to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 81% by 2035, but he has not explained what this will cost the British public. Why is this? He also argues that he will deliver savings through energy policy, and that those plans will boost jobs, growth and national security, and will cut household energy bills. This is very debatable.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the Secretary of State’s climate agenda will not lead to growth. There were also concerns about the National Energy System Operator’s report, which shows that the Government’s rush for clean power by 2030 will add costs to our energy system. In addition, the head of offshore wind development at RWE has warned that the RHG’s rush to meet the 2030 target will lead to price spikes, with consumers losing out. Yet, despite the costs, His Majesty’s Government’s plans would still leave gas pricing the system around 50% of the time, or they would leave the equivalent of a million of homes in the dark, waiting for the wind to blow or the sun to shine.

Billions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money will go to China, the world’s largest polluter, powered 60% by coal, which dominates clean-tech supply chains. Will the Minister set out an assessment of the increased reliance on coal-powered Chinese imports for the Government’s clean power by 2030 goal? What does this mean for global emissions?

The Government’s plans will result in the opposite of what is being promised: low growth, high bills, jobs lost and even blackouts, for more carbon in the atmosphere. Yet, in Baku, the Secretary of State signed the UK up to a $300 billion annual climate finance target. Can the Minister tell the House what this new target means for the British taxpayer?

Although I do believe that Britian has a role to play in global leadership, we must focus on delivering cheap energy, innovation, exports and, ultimately, living standards. If the Secretary of State continues down the path he has set out, our country will possibly face hardship.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome this Statement and the progress made at COP 29. The world—indeed the very future of humanity—stands at a cross-roads. One path leads to a near-term end of the viable future of humanity on planet earth, and the other leads to concerted, collective and constructive change and a willingness to fight for humanity’s future. Time is a luxury that is rapidly running out. We are on the cusp of breaching our collective goal of limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees. We must keep hope alive. We must fight for further rapid progress with the little time we have left.

The near future—one that our children will experience—is one where they will need to fight climate change and deal with the ever-growing consequences of the failure to do so earlier. The tragic loss of life and destruction from Storm Bert is the latest reminder of this fact. It is not acceptable that funding shortfalls mean that the number of properties to be protected from flooding by 2027 was cut by the previous Government by 40%. Will the Minister commit to including natural flood defences as a central part of the £5.2 billion flood-defence spending to protect our communities? Much more work is also needed on adaption and resilience programmes.

COP 29 concluded with a deal that, while welcome, still leaves much to be desired. The $300 billion a year is a start, but the developed world must do more to support the developing world to implement its own clean energy and adaption programmes. It is estimated that this funding can deliver reductions equivalent to more than 15 times the UK’s annual emissions. Simply put, we can either pay now or we can pay more later. The greatest cost of all is always that of doing nothing.

We very much welcome the return of UK leadership on the world stage on climate issues, after the dying days of the Conservative Government did so much damage to our international standing and reputation with their retreat from reality. I congratulate our negotiators on their work. We welcome the commitments to new ambitious emissions targets, including the reduction by at least 81% by 2035. Delivery depends on bolder and more decisive action. We support this programme and I express our willingness to work with the Minister to help the UK to seize this opportunity.

We need concentrated and immediate action to insulate our homes, reduce energy costs and ensure that no one has to choose between heating and eating. The delay to Labour’s warm homes plan until spring 2025 is unacceptable when millions of people, including 1.2 million pensioners, face a cold and uncomfortable winter due to the cut in the winter fuel allowance. We need clearer plans to roll out heat pumps, to increase the update of electric vehicles, to fix the unacceptable delays to grid connections, and to achieve rapid progress in improving our energy security and enabling a swift reduction in energy bills.

We will work to progress the GB Energy Bill through this House, but we call on the Minister to give clear commitments to deliver clear community energy programmes. Labour must do more to decentralise the energy transition, bring much-needed jobs and growth from the green economy, and work to ensure that the benefits of our transition and increased energy security are properly communicated. Climate leadership must prioritise solutions that protect communities and restore nature. The nature and climate crises are interlinked and intertwined. We are one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world. Our 30 by 30 target still has unrealistic delivery pathways.

I note that the Statement says:

“The UK will decide what our own contribution will be in the context of our spending review and fiscal situation, and that will come from within the UK aid budget”.


On loss and damage, are these funds ring-fenced against the development cuts announced in the Budget? Lastly, I call on the Government to give the gift of time to the Climate and Nature Bill—a Private Member’s Bill being discussed in the other place. It is so important that we update our climate legislation.

Rhodes Wildfires: Repatriation of Holidaymakers

Debate between Earl Russell and Earl of Courtown

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answers to these questions. The risk of wildfires is not just confined to Rhodes but present in the Aegean and Crete. Should airspace be closed, can the Minister reassure me that the FCDO has contingency plans for repatriating British holidaymakers?

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

The situation is kept continually under review. At the moment there are no plans for repatriation; it is up to the tour operators to bring back our holidaymakers. This is also a wake-up call as far as climate change is concerned. It is essential that the world recognises that, which is why the Integrated Review Refresh reaffirms that tackling climate change remains the Government’s top thematic priority and why the Government spent £1.4 billion in international climate finance over the course of 2021-22.