Buncefield Oil Depot Fire

Yes, and the local Member of Parliament. First, I should like to say a few words about the incident and its impact. The explosions and fires that burned for more than three days were massive and devastating, and caused major damage to residential and commercial properties near the depot. Fortunately, there were no fatalities or really serious injuries, but that was largely down to a good dose of luck in the timing of the incident, as the hon. Gentleman said. There was also contamination of groundwater and surface water from escaped fuel and firefighting water. That was sufficient for the incident to be reported to the European Commission as a major accident to the environment. I am aware of local concerns that the contamination may have affected drinking water supplies, particularly because of the presence of perfluorooctane sulfonate, which I shall refer to as PFOS, in the firefighting foam. That has been, and will continue to be, closely monitored. Let me reassure the hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main), who raised the issue, that to date no evidence has been found of contamination of drinking water. The emergency services’ response to the incident—and particularly the response of the fire and police services—was on a massive scale. I pay tribute to the dedication and professionalism of all those who responded in such difficult circumstances. The incident was a major test of the new national resilience arrangements introduced under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, and the test was, I think, passed. I pay tribute, too, to the resilience of those directly affected by the Buncefield incident. Homes and businesses were damaged, trade was disrupted and jobs were lost. There is continuing uncertainty about the future of the site, as the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead said. It is not surprising that many people, both locally and elsewhere, are keenly awaiting answers about the root causes of the incident and about whether such an event could happen again. The process of finding those answers began the moment that it was safe to begin. Buncefield and other sites that present major accident hazards are regulated by a joint competent authority, formed by the HSE and the Environment Agency in England and Wales, and by the HSE and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in Scotland. I shall generally refer to this joint competent authority, except when speaking of one of its parts. The competent authority assumed formal control of the investigation from the police on 14 December, even before the fires were all finally extinguished. Investigators were able to move on to the site on 16 December. Even so, parts of the site remained so dangerous that they could not be accessed for weeks or even months afterwards. It is a normal statutory function of the competent authority to carry out investigations of major accidents. Those investigations are often highly complex and technical, requiring a wide range of specialist skills and expertise. It was quickly recognised, however, that Buncefield was an exceptional event requiring an exceptional response. That is why the independent Health and Safety Commission, which advises the Government on health and safety policies, decided to direct a formal investigation on 20 December. The commission made that direction using its legal powers under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It set out detailed terms of reference, including reports to be made and published, but that did not amount to a public inquiry. The commission could have directed a public inquiry with the Secretary of State’s consent, but decided that a formal investigation would better advance the interests of safety. The commission was mindful of the pressing need for answers felt by the local community—a point reiterated by the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead—and other communities with fuel storage depots. Public inquiries generally take years to reach any substantial conclusions, and only when their processes have ended can a report be published. That would have seriously delayed sharing the important lessons of Buncefield. By contrast, the current investigation, which the hon. Gentleman welcomed on 13 January, has already produced four reports in quick succession. They have been well received by local communities and local authorities, and they have led directly to work to improve safety. For example, Dacorum borough council has welcomed the good progress described in the initial report while recognising the need to get the investigation right. I shall say more about the activities to improve safety in a moment. First, I stress that the investigation is certainly not being conducted in secrecy or behind closed doors. When the commission announced the investigation, it recognised the need for openness as well as speed to ensure public confidence. It adopted a number of unprecedented measures. For the first time, it appointed an independent investigation board, chaired by Lord Newton of Braintree, to supervise the investigation. The board has scrutinised the progress of the investigation to ensure that it is thorough and that it rigorously pursues all appropriate lines of inquiry. The board’s terms of reference also require it to work closely with all relevant stakeholders and to keep them fully informed. That is why it appointed a community liaison officer to co-ordinate such work. Again, it is the first time that such an appointment has been made in such an investigation. The board has engaged openly and transparently in meetings with local residents and businesses, and it has received representations from interested parties. It is the first time that an investigation board has had such close contact with local interests. More important, the board has ensured that the investigation’s findings have been put into the public domain as soon as they emerge, subject only to the necessary legal considerations. As the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) knows, it has published three progress reports as well as last week’s initial report. It is always challenging to strike the right balance between being open, thorough and sharing safety lessons without delay, and avoiding prejudice to potential legal proceedings. I am satisfied that the commission’s arrangements meet that challenge. Last week, the investigation board published its initial report. It was announced through a written statement to the House by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire). I shall not repeat everything in that statement, but it noted that the investigation has made good progress in identifying the root causes of the incident in spite of the widespread damage that the fire and the force of the explosion caused to the forensic evidence. I shall add to my earlier tributes to the investigation teams. They have worked hard and professionally in difficult and sometimes hazardous conditions to enable such progress to be made. The board considers that enough is known to set out with reasonable confidence the sequence of events leading to the incident, although uncertainty remains about why the explosion was so violent. Work continues on that. The initial report does not make detailed recommendations, but it identifies several areas of concern arising from the investigation. They relate to the design and operation of storage sites, the emergency response to incidents and the advice given to planning authorities about risks to proposed developments around major hazard sites. Action is under way on all those matters. If I may tell the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead, we expect an interim position on land use planning to be made available before the end of the year. It will then be subject to local consultation. As early as February, the competent authority issued a safety alert to 108 storage site operators to review the safety of their operations in light of information emerging from the investigation. That was followed up by inspections of all 108 sites, and the preliminary findings were published on 13 June. Overall, they showed no areas of serious concern, but 50 per cent. of sites have been asked to make improvements. The competent authority took some enforcement action, and we expect more details about that to be made available in the autumn. The Environment Agency initiated a further programme on 11 April to consider the effectiveness of environmental protection at fuel depots. The results of that initiative will be published later this year. In parallel, the industry is working with the competent authority in a task group to improve risk control. The work includes reviewing and revising guidance on handling flammable liquids at storage sites, and an interim report from that task force is expected by the end of September. A second safety alert was issued on 4 July about the working of certain high-level safety systems. Again, it came as a direct result of new information emerging from the Buncefield investigation. All information on actions under way in response to the Buncefield investigation is publicly available on the websites of the Health and Safety Executive or the Environment Agency, as appropriate. I have already referred to the massive scale of the emergency response. Inevitably, there are important lessons to be learned from the event, and several reviews of the emergency response to Buncefield are under way. The advice that the Health and Safety Executive provides to planning authorities about developments around fuel storage sites is also under review. Preliminary conclusions are expected later this year, and relevant to that will be the work of the cross-government group, which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary announced in a statement to the House on 15 May. Other work under way includes the extensive programme of environmental monitoring described in the initial report and carried out by the Environment Agency and other bodies to assess the full impact of the incident on the environment. As part of the investigation’s terms of reference, reviews are being carried out of the competent authority’s prior involvement in regulating activities at the Buncefield site. To ensure impartiality, the reviews are being carried out by people with no previous involvement in regulating Buncefield, and they will report to the Buncefield board. Finally, the competent authority is pursuing a criminal investigation and it will in due course make a recommendation on legal proceedings. Let me assure the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead that all Departments are working closely together in their response to Buncefield. The key co-ordination role is carried out by the Government office for the east of England, which covers the Buncefield site. Finally, there is another initiative by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to learn the lessons of the Buncefield incident and its aftermath. She has asked the Government office for the east of England to convene a task force to investigate options for Government support to businesses and local economies in the period following an exceptional disaster such as the one under discussion. Our paramount concern is that all lessons of Buncefield are learned to prevent such an incident from recurring. However, if an incident occurs, we must ensure that the emergency response arrangements are fully effective. Good progress has been made in a relatively short space of time, but there is still much work to do. That work involves not only the Buncefield investigation board and the competent authority, but a range of agencies throughout central Government. The Government are committed to that effort and to ensuring that the widespread concerns created by the Buncefield incident are fully met. It is vital to take the time to ensure that the investigation is thorough and gets its work right. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead agrees that it would be wrong to rush to hasty conclusions, as Dacorum borough council has itself recognised. The investigation must ensure that all the right lessons are learned, and it must provide robust evidence in the event of any subsequent criminal proceedings. Meanwhile, the Government are doing everything they can to work with other bodies to help the recovery effort in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.