Disruption at Heathrow Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

Disruption at Heathrow

Clive Efford Excerpts
Monday 24th March 2025

(1 day, 20 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Heidi Alexander Portrait Heidi Alexander
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I can give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. I am aware that some other Members of this House—not present in the Chamber today—were busy peddling some myths on Friday morning about this issue. It is clear to me that Heathrow’s back-up power supplies consist of both diesel and electricity generators. No matter what some other Members might be saying, those systems did work. I can give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks.

Clive Efford Portrait Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)
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Fires at electricity substations are not unheard of, and it seems that there may have been a considerable lack of preparedness at Heathrow. When the Secretary of State receives her reviews, will she look into what preparedness there was, and what scenarios those at Heathrow had envisaged for dealing with possible outages of this kind and getting their operations up and running again as quickly as possible?

Heidi Alexander Portrait Heidi Alexander
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I think that the Kelly review will be looking at that. My hon. Friend makes a fair point about preparedness as well as resilience, which I will be discussing with those at Heathrow in the future.