The gas engineers who maintain the safety of the pipe network have voted to go on strike over the Christmas period. The threat hard on the heels of the fire strike leaves the government facing another crisis over public safety.
Brian Strutton, national secretary of the GMB union, said that if the strike went ahead the government would have to decide either to allow the network to run with a dangerously small staff of contracted engineers to attend emergency leaks or to shut down the network, which would not only leave people without gas but would also require each house in the country to be visited before supplies could be safely reconnected.
The GMB represents the 6,000 gas engineers employed by Transco, the privatised monopoly that owns the gas pipe network. It has been in dispute with the company for several months over manning levels, the use of contractors, and pay. Its members have been taking limited industrial action over staggered working hours. It has accused the company of compromising safety by cutting staff and using contractors.
Transco said last night that it expects to go to arbitration to settle the dispute. But talks at Acas broke down on Thursday and no further meetings have been set.
Transco was also accused of dangerous lapses in maintaining its systems and of lying, by Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent North, in a debate in the Commons on Wednesday.
Mr Gardiner used parliamentary privilege to raise serious concerns that Transco's failures are putting lives at risk. He presented detailed allegations made by a competitor, who is one of his constituents, that the company was failing to record vital information about the pressure of gas connections.
He also asked energy minister Brian Wilson to check that "nothing has been done to modify the smell of gas so that the incidence of emergency call-outs, rather than the incidence of leaks, is reduced". Transco is required to add artificial smell to gas supplies so that leaks can be detected.
"What is most worrying are the allegations that Transco's record keeping is inadequate.
"It appears that Transco is incapable of advising workmen connecting up to the mains what pressure they are dealing with in the pipes. The result of that is the wrong valve may be fitted and is ultimately liable to explode," Mr Gardiner told the Guardian.
Mr Gardiner highlighted concerns about Transco's response to gas leaks. "Before the establishment of Transco in 1994 British Gas responded to more than 99.9% of uncontrolled gas escapes in one hour. The response rate varied during the following five years, but dropped as low as 92% at one time. That means that in some years 80,000 uncontrolled gas escapes were not responded to within the target response time."
Mr Gardiner told the Commons that he knew of three cases in the past two weeks where engineers had been given incorrect information about the pressure of valves. He also gave a detailed report of Transco recording information about pipes laid which allegedly "bore little relation to that which had actually been laid.
"This is a grave issue of public safety. If Transco does not properly record, cases will occur such as that at Larkhall, in which a family was tragically killed. It is suspected that the drawing that covered the part of the network responsible incorrectly showed a pipe of cast iron as being made of polyurethane."
Transco has been charged with culpable homicide, following the deaths of a family of four in a gas explosion in Larkhall, Lanarkshire.
Transco wants to make about 400 engineers redundant, following a cap on its prices imposed by the regulator Ofgem. It made 1,000 engineers redundant five years ago as part of cost-saving measures. Last year it admitted that it needed to recruit and train roughly 1,000 people.
In April the health and safety executive issued a certificate of exemption to Transco for six months to allow the company to continue to provide an emergency service without the need for engineers to be Corgi-registered.
A Transco spokesperson said the company would investigate allegations made by Mr Gardiner. He denied the company had made any changes to the levels of smell added to the gas supply. He also refuted the allegation that Transco had sought to mislead people.
He added that Transco took the allegation about record keeping seriously and would look at its procedures. All the engineers sent to attend gas leaks were competent, and the exemption certificate from the HSE was "not a safety issue" but an administrative one.
