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10.29 pm
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Energy (Mr. Richard Page): I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) for raising this important subject. Although the hour is late and springtime is arriving, it is right that we should have an opportunity to discuss this subject. I pay tribute to the great interest that he has taken in representing his
constituents, and express my appreciation to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office, for joining me tonight.
Mr. Home Robertson: He is a constituent of mine.
Mr. Page: I am delighted that he is, and I sincerely hope that my hon. Friend did not have his gas cut off just after Christmas.
It might help the hon. Gentleman if I explained for the record how gas supply security has been approached by British Gas, and the standard licence conditions set by the President of the Board of Trade under the Gas Act 1995.
There are two principal aspects to security of gas supplies. The first is to secure that each winter there is sufficient gas to meet demand. That is achieved by means of the network code, which provides the economic incentives for gas shippers and suppliers to obtain sufficient gas and the price signals that can trigger demand by larger users. Further flexibility arises where gas is conveyed on interruptible terms to large industrial consumers, allowing the suspension of supply where needed. Those arrangements are together designed to secure that sufficient gas is available to domestic customers to meet the demand that would arise in one winter in 50.
The second aspect of supply security is ensuring that there is sufficient pipeline capacity to get the gas to where it is needed. That is a more complicated task, because it involves the operation of each part of the gas pipeline network in Great Britain, which runs to a staggering0.25 million km of pipes. The criterion is that the system must be designed to meet the demand occurring on the peak day likely to occur in one winter in 20. The hon. Gentleman referred to his concern about that limit.
Those security criteria have been used for the planning and development of the gas network, and were reviewed by British Gas in the context of the 1993 Monopolies and Mergers Commission report. They have now been enshrined as specific regulatory obligations in the new licences.
On the specific incident, let me again say, as I have already said at Question Time, how sorry I was to hear about the supply failure that affected part of the hon. Gentleman's constituency during what he admitted was exceptionally severe weather last December. Whether we are, as he suggested, entering another ice age is a matter for debate. I stress the word "exceptionally". I understand that the nearest monitoring station, the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, recorded the coldest temperatures since records began there. The hon. Gentleman emphasised that it was exceptional.
It is an example of Murphy's law, and an undesirable fact of life, that many of the services upon which we depend are prone to break down just when we need them the most, because that is when they are placed under the greatest stress. In fact, the gas distribution system is highly resilient, and hardly ever breaks down through excess demand. That it did on this occasion was a consequence of prolonged very bad weather combined with higher than usual residential demand due to the Christmas and new year holiday.
At this stage--I think that the hon. Gentleman has endorsed this--I should like to acknowledge the great efforts made by those working in the gas industry and the
local authority to minimise the disruption and inconvenience caused. I pay tribute to the way in which the people affected in both East Lothian and Lanarkshire coped with the incidents.
As the hon. Gentleman is aware, high demand caused the supply disruption during the extremely cold weather. I thought that he might be interested to note that demand was 121 per cent. more than the demand for an average winter day, which is more than double. The local supply system, despite being built to the required standard, was sadly unable to cope with that unprecedented demand due to that operational constraint, which is already being removed. As the hon. Gentleman said, there was a risk of air getting in and a danger to the system, which had to be shut down for safety reasons. I understand that emergency plans and procedures, including those involving the local agencies, were duly implemented.
Just over 4,000 homes were cut off in East Lothian on Friday 29 December, and 500 had their supplies restored the same day. As the hon. Gentleman said, engineers were called from the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and worked ceaselessly and tirelessly to try to restore supplies. That process of restoring supplies required a visit to every house by a gas engineer. I believe that some of the delays were caused by the difficulty of getting access to some of the houses, which is why it took three days to reconnect some. As it happened, by Saturday 30 December most of the supplies were restored because those 100-plus engineers worked around the clock.
Both TransCo and Scottish Gas made strenuous efforts to help those customers who suffered disruption to their supplies. They paid particular attention to those with special needs, such as the elderly. As the hon. Gentleman no doubt knows, an incident room was set up in a local primary school to co-ordinate welfare provision and the restoration of supplies.
In particular, British Gas liaised with the regional council to arrange food and warmth in community centres, town halls and schools. It provided several hundred electric heaters and cookers for those in greatest need, and supplied pre-paid power cards for distribution to pensioners and people on income support. Scottish Gas provided a 24-hour help line, and also made contact with those on the GasCare register--the record of customers who have notified British Gas of their age or special needs--to check that they had adequate heating and cooking.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
The Minister emphasised that the Lothian region performed extremely well, and so it did, but Lothian region is no more, thanks to the crazy local government reorganisation. It is far from clear that in West Lothian, East Lothian or Midlothian one, would get the same service if the situation were ever to arise again.
Mr. Page:
This is not quite the opportunity to debate the reorganisation of Scottish local authority activities.
Mr. Dalyell:
The hon. Gentleman mentioned it.
Mr. Page:
Although I said that Lothian coped well, I am confident that its successors will have equally adequate support systems in place if such a disaster ever occurs again.
TransCo's efforts to keep consumers informed about the situation--including about 80 media updates and door-to-door calls--have been criticised. TransCo is considering how improvements in those procedures can be made. I will ensure that the comments of the hon. Member for East Lothian about having a register and the security of the register for the most vulnerable are drawn to the attention of British Gas, so that it can take those concerns into account.
Unlike the hon. Member for East Lothian, I am grateful to the Director-General of Gas Supply for the thorough investigation that her office has undertaken into the incident in East Lothian. I do not so casually dismiss the work that she has done on the investigation. It has provided a basis of factual material that has certainly helped me to prepare for this debate.
I understand that some of the hon Member's constituents believed that the interruption to their supplies was due to the diversion of supplies to Edinburgh. The Ofgas investigation paid particular attention to that concern, but concluded that the interruption arose from the demands placed on the local supply system, and not as a result of deliberate demand management by TransCo.
Mr. Home Robertson:
I realise that the Minister has been well briefed for the debate, but I did not raise that issue, precisely because I am satisfied with the explanation given by Ofgas. What I said was that the criterion to which the Minister has referred--the one-in-20 criterion--is plainly insufficient. If that criterion is taken as an acceptable baseline, it means that all of us will experience two or perhaps three complete shutdowns of the gas supply in our houses in our lifetime. That is not tolerable. It is up to the Minister and Ofgas to impose realistic criteria to ensure genuine safety of supply in cold winters.
Mr. Page:
Time is not on my side. I do not have enough to argue the point back and forth, but, if I recall correctly--I shall read the report of our proceedings--the hon. Gentleman used words such as "whitewash" in relation to the report. That is slightly dismissive. He says that the one-in-20 criterion is not adequate, but, apart from a small shutdown in Lanarkshire, the details of which I am not completely au fait with, the incident in East Lothian was the only one that I am aware has occurred in the past 10 years.
Mr. Home Robertson:
So that is all right, then?
Mr. Page:
I did not say that it was all right. As the hon. Gentleman is saying that there will be two or three
The hon. Gentleman also raised the question, which was mentioned in the Ofgas report, of the monitoring of the gasholder at Prestonpans. It will, of course, become an academic question for this site when TransCo completes the current re-enforcement, which will connect the area directly to the higher capacity intermediate pressure system. However, the director general suggested improved inspection, and I understand that TransCo has now decided that, where a gasholder is critical to security of supply, it will be visited more frequently when conditions approach that one-in-20 situation.
I must emphasis that, although the failure was in freak conditions that well surpassed the design criteria, I would not wish it to be thought that TransCo is simply shrugging off the whole issue. Steps are being taken to ensure that such incidents remain exceedingly rare.
In the specific location, the operational constraint that caused the problem--the medium pressure link to the local area--is being replaced with an intermediate pressure link with a much higher capacity. That will effectively rule out a repetition of the incident, and is due to be installed in time for next winter. A stretch of pipeline 1.25 km long has already been installed. I shall ensure that TransCo is aware of the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has expressed, and of the need to ensure that the work is completed before next winter.
More generally, TransCo is considering its response to the recommendations of the Ofgas investigation. However, it is already undertaking further planning and load sensitivity studies to ascertain whether additional opportunities may exist to alleviate supply difficulties in periods of extreme temperature at the limits of the system design criteria. Also, I understand that the Edinburgh district is compiling a report detailing the procedures used throughout the incident, highlighting the learning points from its experience. The report will be distributed to other districts, and any learning points will be incorporated in emergency plans as appropriate. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman.
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