Michael Shanks

First, it is important to say that Heathrow had multiple routes into its electricity network—three in fact—which is unique. This report and the processes identified in the Kelly review will give Heathrow Airport Ltd pause for thought on what it needs to do on how its network is configured and how it can adapt in such situations. Of course, this is an incredibly rare circumstance, but the whole point of resilience planning is to plan for eventualities that we think are extremely unlikely to happen but that would have a significant impact if they did. Heathrow closing is clearly one such circumstance. Secondly, my hon. Friend is right to highlight standards and systems. I want to be careful not to prejudge the review that Ofgem has announced, because there is something to be said about standards changing over time. Maintenance backlogs obviously then have to be met, and if the issue is that maintenance that should have been carried out has not been, that is clearly an issue we will take forward. But if it is just that pieces of infrastructure were subject to standards that have changed over time, we have a wider question of how we can adapt some of that infrastructure for future standards. We will look at all those points. I repeat to the House that our electricity system is incredibly robust in its resilience. We need to do everything possible to make it even more robust, so that such instances do not have quite so significant an impact as this one did.