§ Mr. Raymond S. RobertsonTo ask the President of the Board of Trade when the Health and Safety Commission's report on gas safety will be published.
§ Mr. EggarI have today published, jointly with the Health and Safety Commission, its report on safety in the new gas market.
I welcome the report's recommendations for a comprehensive gas safety management regime. The proposals provide a firm framework which will allow the proposed safety regime to respond proportionately and flexibly to the unfolding impact of liberalisation.
The report examines the safety implications of liberalising the domestic gas supply market, and of a more open framework for gas pipeline systems. It describes the means which will be required to maintain, and if possible improve upon, the safety record of British Gas as the extent of unitary control of the pipeline system reduces over time.
Each system transporting gas to the public will be required to appoint a system manager, who will set out in a written safety case how management of the system will be achieved. Some of these safety cases are likely to be quite simple and straightforward. They will all, however, have to address key safety criteria approved by the Health and Safety Executive. The HSE will need to accept the safety case before operations can begin, although transitional arrangements will be put in place to avoid disruption as these new arrangements are introduced.
When a number of public gas transporter systems come together, a network manager will he appointed to be responsible for producing an over-arching safety case for the network as a whole, which will also have to be accepted by the HSE. It will set down the specified emergency conditions in which the network manager will have statutory powers to override the operation of the whole network, and how this should be done. These powers will be backed up by licence obligations on shippers and suppliers to co-operate in an emergency.
The report also covers other important issues, such as emergency response and safety downstream of the meter. Although adequate interim provision for safety is made in the Gas Bill, the HSC has set 1 April 1996 as a target date for agreeing new regulations and the associated documentation, to coincide with the opening up to competition of an initial area covering some 500,000 consumers.
Copies of the report have been placed in the Library of the House.