HC Deb 27 May 2004 vol 421 c1772W
Mr. Clifton-Brown

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how well developed Government plans are to deal with a serious emergency in the London Underground. [174681]

Mr. McNulty

Through the London Resilience partnership, the Government are working closely with London Underground, Transport for London, British Transport Police and the other emergency services to ensure that London's front-line responders are as well prepared as possible to deal with a serious emergency on the underground. This work is building on tried and tested emergency response procedures and practice developed by London Underground and the emergency services through thirty years of coping directly with terrorist alerts and other emergencies on the underground network. Over the past two and a half years, a number of steps have been taken—and continue to be taken—to strengthen further this emergency response capacity. These include the provision of new equipment to the emergency services, ongoing verbal and written briefings to London Underground staff and a continuing programme of training and exercises.

Mr. Clifton-Brown

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment has been made of whether London Underground lines could be evacuated successfully in the event of a serious disruption to the electricity supply of the London Underground. [174685]

Mr. McNulty

This is an operational matter for London Underground, but during last August's power failure all passengers were safely evacuated following well-established procedures. Although not needed last August, LU has back up generators that provide sufficient power for essential equipment, including tunnel and additional station lights that enable the safe evacuation of trains trapped between stations.

London Underground has well established procedures for investigating any incident and how it was handled. LU published a report in December on the August power failure and has revised its procedures for evacuating trains, as well as improving familiarity with how to restore services following a power failure and has acted to reduce the risk of a similar incident.