Power Outages: North of England

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the ongoing power outages across the North of England.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, I declare that I am a customer of Northern Powergrid.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

In the face of damage to infrastructure unprecedented in recent years, network engineering staff have been working tirelessly in challenging conditions to make repairs and restore power as quickly as possible. As of this morning, fewer than 20,000 people remain without power, and more than 950,000 have had their electricity restored. The Secretary of State has commissioned his officials to conduct a post-incident review to learn lessons and improve system resilience and customer support.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his Answer. He will be aware that there was simply no way to report a power cut or to receive information as to how the planned power cut might be expected to be terminated. There was no mobile signal and, obviously, there was no access because there was no power to the internet, which are the two main means by which customers are asked to report a power outage. Will my noble friend ensure that the military engineers are sent in to support Northern Powergrid and others responsible for the remaining thousands of customers who are without power, and ensure that a rumour going around that some will be without power until the new year is absolutely untrue? In the long term, will my noble friend ensure that we reduce reliance on overhead power lines and the overhead transmission of power, and seek to put these giant electricity wires underground, as is the case in other parts of the country?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Of course, there are many lessons to be learned from the past week. It has been extremely challenging in the north of the country. I am from there myself and well aware of the issues: many people have contacted me about it. I just say to the noble Baroness that more than 4,000 engineers have been working to repair the damage, 750 generators have been deployed to provide emergency power and vulnerable customers have been prioritised for support. There are clearly issues about being able to contact Northern Powergrid, in particular; it was overwhelmed by the volume of calls. These were exceptionally strong winds of more than 100 miles per hour, and it is the most damage that has been done to the system for 15 years.