The cause of the fire which shut down Heathrow Airport is “not believed to be suspicious” but is under investigation by the Met Police counter-terrorism squad, a minister has said.
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander updated MPs on the “unprecedented” power outage which shut Britain’s busiest airport over the weekend in the House of Commons on Monday.
Alexander told MPs: “Regarding the cause of the fire, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the fire is not believed to be suspicious.
“However due to the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s counter-terrorism command are leading our inquiries into this matter.
“This is due to the specialist resource and capabilities within that command which can assist in progressing this investigation at pace to help minimise disruption and identify the cause.”
The transport secretary stressed that the government would take away “learnings to ensure we avoid such incidents from reoccurring” and highlighted the energy secretary Ed Miliband commissioning the National Energy System Operator (Neso) to “urgently investigate”.
She said initial findings from Neso would be returned within six weeks, and that Heathrow had asked board member and former transport secretary Ruth Kelly “to undertake a review of its internal resilience” which would look into “Heathrow’s crisis management plans”.
And Alexander also said while she was “not going to become an armchair electrical engineer”, she wanted to see the reports, and that the government was “also conducting, via the Cabinet Office, a resilience review of critical national infrastructure”.
‘Deeply concerned’
Alexander told MPs the government is “closely monitoring to ensure that passengers are properly supported”, including with their consumer rights.
Shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon stressed: “Focusing on the details of this incident, it is evident that it raises significant concerns about the resilience of Heathrow Airport in particular, and critical infrastructure in general.”
While speaking earlier today, Sir Keir Starmer has said that he is “deeply concerned” about last week’s Heathrow shut down and “not comfortable” with what happened.
The Prime Minister told the BBC: “I’m deeply concerned about what happened on Friday, I think anybody would be. Clearly there are questions that need to be answered.”
He later added: “I don’t want to see an airport as important as Heathrow going down in the way it did on Friday, so I’m not comfortable with that for one second.”