Buncefield Oil Depot Fire

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) on raising this issue. It is clearly of enormous importance to his constituency and has great significance for other parts of the United Kingdom that have similar oil and fuel storage facilities. I hope that we will be able to return to the subject in other debates. I add the congratulations and thanks of my party to those given by his party to the members of the emergency services who dealt with what was clearly a major and serious incident. I know that the hon. Gentleman is keen to leave as much time as possible for the Minister to respond to the debate, so I shall keep my comments as brief as possible. Conservative Members have commented on a number of the environmental concerns that remain in the area around Buncefield. Those points have been made clearly, and therefore I do not need to add to them. I hope that the Minister will be able to address three particular issues. The first is a point that has, understandably, not been made so far: when the fire and explosion initially occurred, there were fears, given the general background, that the incident might have been caused by a terrorist attack of some kind. As I am sure that the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead is aware, there is a danger of fighting the previous fire and learning the lessons of an incident that may not be the one that we face in the future. As the investigation proceeds, will the Minister ensure that any lessons arising from Buncefield about the safety of these types of facility will be taken on board in relation to the security aspects of such sites? The sites are key in national security terms, and we want to ensure that their vulnerability is closely examined in respect not only of this type of incident, which fortunately was not a terrorist one, but of any terrorist incidents that might occur. Secondly, we know that, in this set of circumstances, the key issues were why the fuel was allowed to run into and over the top of the tank, why the safety checks failed and why the safety equipment appeared not to be working. We know that the Health and Safety Executive issued a safety alert in early July to operators of fuel storage facilities. That related specifically to one of the safety devices that are supposed to be attached to all of the tanks to prevent such incidents from occurring. We know, because it is set out in paragraph 23 of the report, that there was further investigation into the design and operation of this particular high-level switch, and the way in which the switches are put back in a position that ensures that they are operating after testing. Paragraph 23 states:"““While the relevance of this feature to the Buncefield incident has still to be determined, one of the issues that has arisen from these enquiries relates to the reliance on this type of switch””." I would be grateful if the Minister would say a little about why the issue has arisen in relation to Buncefield. Is there any evidence that the switches of this type at Buncefield were not operating? Are these particular switches tested regularly by the HSE as part of its regular inspections of these sites? Will that be done in future? It would also be useful if he would say whether the testing of these devices has taken place at other facilities throughout the United Kingdom. My third and final point is that it is clear from the ministerial statement that was made the other day and from other things that the size of both the fire and the incident was not expected. We still do not know why the explosion was as large as it was. It is also clear from paragraph 83 of the report that the HSE’s advice about the type of incident that could occur in a worse-case scenario turned out not to be accurate. It states:"““A vapour cloud explosion was initially considered, but arising from tanker loading operations and not tank storage. A pool fire was assessed as presenting the greater off-site hazard. The Buncefield incident brings into question the assessment policy for many oil/fuel depot sites, and the zone setting method which it informs.””" That is clearly an extremely important point for other sites in the country.