Anne Begg
Main Page: Anne Begg (Labour - Aberdeen South)
Chris Huhne
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the question. He is absolutely right. This industry is crucial for us, and it is in everyone’s interest, not least the people who work and invest in the industry, that the standards of environmental safety and health and safety should be as high as we can possibly make them. I can assure him that we intend to make that the case.
Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
At one stage last week, I had great fear that we were talking ourselves into a second crisis that would have undermined BP and, indeed, the whole offshore oil and gas industry, but I am glad that things seem to have calmed down over the weekend. Partly to restore faith, BP and its partners must know what they need to do to stem the flow of oil and what their responsibility is with regard to the clean-up, and understand and be able to quantify just how much it will cost to make the reparations that are obviously needed for those on the shore whose livelihoods have been devastated.
Chris Huhne
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I spoke yesterday to BP chief executive Tony Hayward, and I spoke this morning to another board member, Iain Conn. Until those conversations took place, I had not realised the extent of the co-operative effort across the industry in attempting to find a technical solution. Frankly, it is in the interests of all the oil and gas companies that operate in the gulf of Mexico and, indeed, more widely to ensure that they can reassure their publics and the people who are affected in Louisiana and the other coastal states that there are genuine technical solutions. That is one of the encouraging signs of what is now going on.