Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)

My Lords, I refer to my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. I understand that the Daily Telegraph knows what happened. The headline today said: “Blame Heathrow’s faceless foreign owners for airport’s meltdown”. That may be a rather simplistic analysis, but it does strike me that there is an issue—this is a point the noble Earl raised—with the extent to which the contingency plans within the airport had been thought through and stress-tested. You cannot create it overnight, but had Heathrow considered, for example, as part of its risk analysis and appetite, whether it was possible to run part of the airport and keep some of the functions going? Had it considered its ability to switch from one source of power to another without having to switch off all the systems? When it is known the extent to which Heathrow had contingency plans and stress-tested them, could my noble friend the Minister say whether his department has any powers to say to those who own airports that their risk appetite should be different? The economic consequences of disruption at Heathrow will always be enormous and the reputational impact for the country as a whole is enormous. Does the Minister have the power, if necessary, to tell the owners to take a different risk appetite?