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Dept for Work and Pensions

Answer

Mr. Francois: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what targets have been set for the Health and Safety Executive in respect of time elapsing from application for approval of large scale natural gas infrastructure to the completion of assessment; what the performance against target has been in each of the last five years; and what steps he is taking to ensure timely assessments are carried out. [197637] Jane Kennedy: [holding answer 11 November 2004]: A large scale natural gas infrastructure project would be subject to the Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations 1999 (COMAH) which are enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency acting jointly as the competent authority. These regulations require the operator to submit a "pre- construction safety report" to the competent authority for assessment three to six months before construction starts. Construction cannot begin until the competent authority has advised the operator of its conclusions and the operator is then required to produce a pre- operational safety report. The competent authority's publicly available safety report assessment manual gives the timescale for completion of the assessment of the pre-operational safety reports as twelve months, but notes that there may be reasons where this cannot be achieved. There are no timescales for pre-construction safety reports. The competent authority can confirm that no large scale natural gas infrastructure projects have been delayed, in the last five years, due to a failure to make timely assessments.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

426 c1200W;426 c1204W; 197637

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Construction Health and safety Infrastructure Natural gas

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk