HC Deb 24 May 1984 vol 60 cc1249-53 3.33 pm
Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland)

(by private notice) asked the Minister of State, Department of Employment if he will make a statement about the explosion yesterday at the Abbeystead water treatment plant in Lancashire.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer)

As the Minister with immediate responsibility for the Health and Safety Executive, I have been asked to reply.

The House will be aware that at about 7.30 yesterday evening there was an explosion at a North West water authority installation at Abbeystead in Lancashire whilst a party of local people were being shown round.

I have to inform the House with great regret that the number of people who have died is now nine, including three employees of the authority, and the total number of injured, several seriously, is 34. Most of the dead and injured come from the small village of St. Michael's. They had been invited to see how the plant controls transfers of water from the river Lune to the river Wyre. That is necesary when water supplies to Blackpool need to be augmented.

The Lancashire emergency services were quickly on the scene and I would like to pay tribute to them and all those who toiled continuously to recover the injured and the dead. The work of medical staff on site and in the local hospitals deserves special commendation. The authority chairman and the two local managers who went to the scene remained there and assisted emergency services throughout the night.

I am sure that the House will want to join me in expressing its deep sympathy with the bereaved and the relatives of those who are injured. It is particularly tragic that the visit should have ended in such a terrible disaster for a local rural community. Our thoughts and prayers today in this House are with this small parish to which this has come as a terrible blow.

I have to tell the House that the cause of the accident is at present unknown. That means that any theories about the cause are at this stage speculation.

What is of the utmost importance now is that there should be a full inquiry into the causes of this accident so that we can know what happened and take action. Action is needed to ensure that there will be no repetition. I understand that inspectors from the factory inspectorate, including specialists in fire and explosion matters, were at the scene of the accident within hours, and that their investigation is already under way.

Hon. Members may already know that the Health and Safety Commission has this morning announced that it is asking the Health and Safety Executive to conduct an urgent, special inquiry under section 14(2)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 into the causes of the accident. The report of the executive to the commission will, of course, be published. I am sure the House will welcome this. Mr. Rimington, the director-general of the Health and Safety Executive, has himself gone to the scene of the accident, and will be overseeing the progress of the investigation by the area director and the staff of the Health and Safety Executive. The important objective now is to ensure that those with the required technical expertise can discover the cause of the accident and make the facts public as rapidly as possible. A special investigation by the executive, drawing on the expertise of the factory inspectorate and the mines and quarries inspectorate, can be expected to achieve this.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction, who is responsible for the water industry, has flown to Abbeystead today. I have spoken to him this afternoon. He has visited the outfall, and the Royal Lancaster hospital, and is now on his way to the village of St. Michael's. I shall be visiting the site and the village myself as soon as possible. I am keeping my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) and for Wyre (Sir W. Clegg) fully informed.

I am sure the House will join me in expressing our deep concern for the village community of St. Michael's struck by this terrible blow, and in affirming our determination to ensure that the cause of this disaster will be speedily uncovered.

Dr. Cunningham

I thank the Minister for his very full statement, and associate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friends and myself with the expressions of condolence to those families who have been bereaved, and to those councillors, workers and others who have been injured in this appalling tragedy.

May I ask the Minister to be a little more specific about the kind of inquiry that he is suggesting? May I put it to him that there should be a full public inquiry about this explosion? Is it the case that under section 14 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act powers exist for an investigation to be held in the form of a full public inquiry with the approval of the Secretary of State, and is that not the proper way to proceed in this matter, as was the case with the Flixborough disaster in 1974? Will the Minister please be specific in his response?

Will the Minister also confirm that the structure—the mechanisms, the chamber in question—was completed only as recently as 1980 as part of a £60 million scheme, and that it is typical of several other schemes in the United Kingdom? Will he therefore arrange, as a matter of urgency, for those other similar systems to be inspected immediately?

May I, like the Minister, associate my right hon. Friends and myself with the tributes to those in the rescue and emergency services who acted so promptly to bring help and relief to the injured, and to the workers, nurses, doctors and others in the hospitals who have been involved? This has been an appalling tragedy to a small rural community, and to an industry with an excellent record of safety and productivity among the work force.

Mr. Gummer

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that this is a particularly serious tragedy to so small a community, and in an industry where tragedies of this kind are almost unknown.

On the question of a public inquiry, we need to get the information as quickly as possible. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would be happy — if, in the circumstances, that is the right word—to order a public inquiry if that appears necessary after the immediate investigation has taken place. Under section 14(2)(a) an investigation can be held and under section 14(2)(b) a public inquiry can be held. Of its nature, a public inquiry would take longer, so the results would be less readily available.

The commission is the independent body that gives advice on such matters, and it has ordered an inquiry under the first of those two sections. That seems sensible. Once we have the results from that, it may still be open for us to have a full public inquiry. My right hon. Friend will take very careful note of any representations put to him. I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that our main purpose now must be to find out what happened as quickly as possible, consonant with accuracy.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the typicality of the system. The installation was unique; there is no exact equivalent. However, I have already insisted that the half dozen or so installations that might be thought parallel—I put it like that, because they are not parallel, but might be thought to be so—should immediately cease to allow any visitors to them. Most of them are, of course, unmanned stations. The one in question was, indeed, an unmanned station.

One of the terrible things about the disaster was that, contrary to the comment that we so often read that people would not have been hurt if they had been there only two minutes later, in this instance an explosion would not, in almost any other circumstance, have led to loss of life. It is very rare for there to be people there, other than those few who visit from time to time, to check operations. Thus, it is particularly serious and sad that the explosion should have happened at that moment. I am told that there are fewer than half a dozen similar installations, and until we know the reason for the disaster they will not admit any visitors.

Mr. Robert Atkins (South Ribble)

On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman), who was unavoidably detained in Europe and who is now, of course, with her constituents—and I express her apologies to the House for her absence from the Chamber—and as a fellow Lancashire Member of Parliament who lives very close to the village of St. Michael's on Wyre, may I express my sorrow at the tragedy and offer my sympathy to the relatives of the deceased and to the injured? On behalf of my hon. Friend, may I ask whether the Government will immediately make available to the North West water authority any extra funds that are necessary to expedite the work to relieve the anxiety of the village of St. Michael's on Wyre, which has suffered so much as a result of this tragedy?

Mr. Gummer

As my hon. Friend knows, my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction is at present on the site, probably in the village of St. Michael's. I can assure my hon. Friend that my hon. Friend will be discussing such matters now. Obviously the North West water authority has made no such request so far, but if it did, the request would be considered most carefully.

Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn)

May I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins), and also express my personal sorrow at the appalling tragedy? Although there is a deep sense of shock throughout the country, I know that it is all the deeper among all communities in Lancashire. Those who live in both urban and rural parts know that area well and share a sense of loss with the villagers of St. Michael's on Wyre over those who lost their lives.

Although I understand the Minister's point about the need for an immediate investigation, will he and his colleagues bear in mind that the scale of the tragedy and the uncertainty of its cause in an installation whose safety was not in doubt until yesterday argue very strongly for a public inquiry? Even though a public inquiry might take longer, it is essential that public confidence in such installations should be restored, and that is possible only through the fullest inquiry, held under the public gaze.

Mr. Gummer

There is nothing that would stop us from having a public inquiry except trying to solve the immediate problem of why the tragedy happened. We do not know why it happened. It was not anything that anybody could possibly expect in such circumstances. Had we asked yesterday the wisest men in the field they would have said that the incident was impossible. We have to investigate carefully and quickly.

It has not always been the custom to hold public inquiries into very serious matters, but if the public needed such an inquiry to set minds at rest I am sure that my right hon. Friend would take the necessary action. As the Minister responsible, my desire is to ensure that no other installation is set at risk because we do not have the information quickly enough.

Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd (Morecambe and Lunesdale)

I associate myself personally and on behalf of my constituents with everything that has been said about the incident. Is my hon. Friend aware that the horror that we all feel about the tragedy is compounded by the incredulity that such an incident could have happened at a plant which posed no danger? Are such plants visited regularly, or at all, by the Health and Safety Executive? Should not that aspect be considered in the forthcoming inquiry?

Mr. Gummer

My hon. Friend is right to say that the incredulity adds to the horror. The plant was visited in 1981 by the Health and Safety Executive. All hon. Members would regard it as a low-risk plant. No one would expect anything of this kind to happen and no one suggested it. It is important to discover urgently what happened. When we have done that, we can take the necessary action—and we shall do so.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

May I associate my hon. Friends in the Liberal and Social Democratic parties with the condolences expressed by the Minister to the people of St. Michael's on Wyre which I visited only last year? My hon. Friends from the north-west wish to be associated with the Minister's remarks.

I am grateful to the Minister for the information. Obviously speed is most important, but, if the result of the initial inquiry is inconclusive, will there be a public inquiry? Does the Minister agree that the arguments for water authority debates on health and safety matters to be open to the public are now considerably enhanced?

Mr. Gummer

I do not think that the House would wish me to go into that last point now, but it will want me to assure the hon. Gentleman that the report of the inquiry will be published and that that inquiry will be open to the public. I want no one to think that it will be an internal inquiry. The North West water authority will want to make its own internal investigations, so that does not run counter to the hon. Gentleman's desire. If the inquiry was unsatisfactory in any way, my right hon. Friend would take the matter seriously. In such circumstances, I should expect a further inquiry to take place. I want to know what happened. At the moment no one can tell us what happened. The quicker they can, the better.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I have to bear in mind the subsequent business before the House—an emergency debate which lasts for three hours and then an Opposition day for which there is no injury time. It must end at 10 o'clock. I therefore propose to limit business questions to a maximum of 15 minutes before I consider one Standing Order No. 10 application.