Disruption at Heathrow

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for advance sight of the Statement made yesterday.

The remarkable thing about this event is what it was not. It was not a hostile terrorist attack, but in the first few moments no one could have known that. Indeed, the natural suspicion would have been that it was. That circumstance can only enhance our admiration for, and our thanks to, the firefighters in particular, and other responders who rushed to the scene not knowing what would await them. We are all very grateful to them and all the others who pulled Heathrow back from this incident for what they did.

It is worth also saying a word of thanks to the staff of Heathrow Airport, and I would like to do so. It may seem a fairly simple thing to switch an airport off and then, a while later, just to switch it back on again. There are rare occasions when this happens. I am thinking of the example of Bangkok airport in 2008, when an occupation by protesters for a week caused the airport to be shut down deliberately. On that occasion, once it was safe to do so, it took a full five days to restart the airport safely. The fact that the staff at Heathrow were able to respond so well and so effectively to the changes—I cannot describe or imagine them—in electrical work required to operate the airport, and to do so quickly and safely, shows their skill and abilities, and is something that we should be grateful for and acknowledge.

Once it was clear that this was not a terrorist incident, everyone could relax. The chief executive of Heathrow was so relaxed that he went back to bed. But of course, the people who could not relax were the passengers affected by this event. Across the world, it is estimated that nearly 300,000 people were affected by this incident, spread out over 1,350 flights. Does the Minister think that they have received an adequate apology? Many of them will be receiving financial compensation, depending on their carrier and the jurisdiction that they live under, but is financial compensation simply enough? Is it too easy for us to think, “Oh, they’ve got their compensation and their refund—we don’t actually need to apologise”? I have not seen a great deal of apologising going on to people who were very seriously affected and disrupted in their lives and in their plans.

Turning to the specifics of the incident, it raises significant questions about Heathrow’s resilience and the safeguarding of critical infrastructure. The fact that the airport was reliant on this electrical substation which proved so vulnerable is concerning and the outage serves as a stark reminder that energy security is about not only affordability but ensuring the physical safety and reliability of our infrastructure. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about that reliability and security.

I will say immediately that I recognise that it is not always the right answer to build in huge amounts of redundancy in the light of an event that may happen only very occasionally. These are difficult judgments to make. All that redundancy costs a lot of money. I know that the Government and Heathrow have to make difficult judgments about it. I would like, however, at least to hear in what direction the Government are going in making those judgments: whether they think they have got the balance right and what should be done. Given the essential role of airports to our economy, what discussions has the Minister had with the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero regarding the security of energy supplies to our major airports? Can the Minister tell us what the timeline is for the Kelly review being undertaken on behalf of Heathrow Airport? Does he expect its findings to be fully publicly accessible?

Finally, will the Government assess the incident in the broader context of Heathrow’s expansion? I am not referring exclusively to plans for a third runway. Heathrow has significant expansion plans that fall short of a third runway that it is progressing with securing approval for at the moment. Does the Minister believe that the current infrastructure challenges at Heathrow raise wider concerns about the viability and resilience of that expansion? What steps will be taken to ensure that any future expansion does not exacerbate the vulnerabilities exposed by this recent disruption? What steps will be taken to ensure that any future expansion does not increase the airport’s vulnerability to this sort of event?