Buncefield Oil Depot Fire

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Conway. I thank colleagues for getting up so early to come to our first debate on the Buncefield incident, and the Minister for taking the time and having the consideration to meet me yesterday to discuss the Buncefield inquiry. At 1 minute past 6 on 11 December, an explosion registering 2.7 on the Richter scale rocked my constituency and neighbouring constituencies across Hertfordshire and the other home counties and parts of London. Tank 12 had been letting a rather large amount—200 tonnes—of unleaded fuel escape for a considerable time, and the vapour exploded in the car park areas of the Northgate and Fuji buildings on Mayland industrial estate. It was the largest explosion on mainland Europe since the second world war. Everybody accepts that the subsequent explosion and fire tested our emergency services to the extreme. We are all very proud at the absolutely fantastic job that they did. I fully accept that the incident could not have been predicted. There had been similar, although not identical, incidents around the world, but as a former fireman, I am all too aware that no one had trained or prepared for an explosion of that magnitude or for a subsequent fire and explosions. I reiterate my admiration for the firefighters who came from all over the country to help my constituents in that national disaster.