Storm Arwen: Power Outages

Alan Brown Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and it was invaluable to have his assistance on Friday when visiting his community in Banff and Buchan. I met the SSE engineers at Methlick, and this is also a good occasion to thank in particular Mike Coull from the Little Kitchen, who has been working flat out to provide free fish and chips to the community affected in Methlick. I thank my hon. Friend for everything that he has done to keep his constituents posted and to make sure he fulfils his role here in the House, scrutinising the UK Government.

It was also a pleasure in particular to meet in Aberdeenshire those who had come from across the UK to assist. I was talking to one of the engineers who had come up from Liverpool, and there was a genuine professional satisfaction in coming from right the way across the country to help people in their time of need. I saw that from right across the UK, and I think people were very thankful for that. I also join with my hon. Friend in thanking the local communities.

On the review, of course people have become more dependent on electricity. Generally, that can be a good thing for us, particularly with electric vehicles and electricity as a source of power, but we also need to recognise that greater dependence means a greater responsibility, which I am sure will be part of the joint BEIS-Ofgem review coming up.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I, too, pay tribute to the fortitude of those who have been affected and the fantastic community support that has been provided, as well as to the workers doing the work and challenging the elements. However, the reality is that it is completely unacceptable for people to be without power for 10 days, and it is unacceptable for the Minister to stand here and say it is unacceptable—and that communications are unacceptable—without telling us what he is doing to sort out these unacceptable conditions.

With so many faults—way more than were predicted by modelling—what discussions have the Government had about whether the modelling is robust enough? What assessment are they making of the robustness of the network itself, of the recovery plans, and—we knew the storm was coming—of whether people understood the effects of the storm and other factors, such as trees being felled by the wind?

Customers and Parliament were given dates for when electricity would be restored, but those have proven to be wrong, so what assessment have the Government made of how the electricity companies have undertaken that work? It is quite clear that they did not have a grip of the situation. Was all the technology deployed that could have been deployed, such as drones and other remote working devices? Was sufficient tree-clearing equipment and labour deployed in the aftermath?

The Minister spoke about the mutual aid, but that clearly has not been sufficient to resolve the situation. It is quite clear that the Army should have been deployed more quickly. Why did the Government not offer the use of the Army? What compensation will be provided to customers, particularly hospitality business, and how will lessons learned be conveyed to Parliament? The Minister spoke about lessons learned from Storm Desmond. Why were those lessons not sufficient?

[Greg Hands]

As I mentioned, I spent Friday in Aberdeenshire seeing the situation on the ground. I was joined by Chris Burchell, the managing director of SSE, and I put him on the spot about his communications. I think they were better in the first few days than those of Northern Powergrid, but it has been a difficult time for everyone concerned.

On the calling out of the Army, the hon. Gentleman will know that that is a role for the local resilience forum, the Grampian local resilience partnership. On Friday I also met Jim Savege, the chief executive of Aberdeenshire Council, who I think chairs or leads the local resilience partnership. He was very satisfied, I think, with the response of the Army and others. I met the 3 Scots when I was in Aberdeenshire; I understand that 45 Commando and the 39 Engineer Regiment have also been deployed. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will join me in thanking them for the work they have been putting in to help the community.

In terms of assistance—the NEWSAC scheme and the ability to deploy engineers from right across the United Kingdom—the hon. Gentleman may wish to reflect on the message from the industry about the importance of the UK response in being able to deploy people. A lot of engineers were deployed in Scotland; 630 were deployed from elsewhere in the UK. These are highly qualified, highly capable, very technical people. Two hundred and eighty-five of them came from the rest of the UK to Scotland, and 400 are currently in the north-east of England. I particularly want to minute my thanks for the efforts they have put in right across this United Kingdom.