Andrew Murrison
Main Page: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)Department Debates - View all Andrew Murrison's debates with the Department for Transport
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Heidi Alexander
I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that commitment.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that what happened on Thursday and Friday is a complete national embarrassment and should never have happened? Will she do an assessment of our remaining airports to ensure not only that they also have multiple supply points for electricity, but that they do not rely on the illusion, as plainly happened at Heathrow, that those multiple supply points made it completely reliable as a hub airport? That appears at first glance to have been the case for Heathrow, and it is not adequate.
Heidi Alexander
Perhaps the right hon. Member was not listening when I responded to questions from this side of the Chamber. There were multiple power supply points to the airport, but Heathrow took the decision that it needed to reconfigure the supply in the airport, as terminals 2 and 4 were very badly affected. It decided to put the safety and security of the travelling public first. It powered down all those systems and then powered them up again. I was not in the room when those decisions were taken. Heathrow is a private company, and it took decisions about what it thought was best for the travelling public. I, as Transport Secretary, am not going to second-guess those, but I will ensure that we do very thorough reviews. I will interrogate those reviews very carefully and ensure that any lessons we need to learn are acted upon.