Conduct Of The Right Honourable Member For Henley When Secretary Of State For Defence

EDM number 194 in 1990-91, proposed by Alan Williams on 07/12/1990.

That this House notes with deep concern the National Audit Office report that ú350 million was lost in the two largest warehouse fires in British history, both at the Army's Central Ordnance Depot, Donnington, involving two very similar buildings; notes that after the first in June 1983 Ministers were told that `there was a real possibility of another equally disastrous fire' (para 2.9) and that 12 buildings were `very high' or `high' risk (para 2.14); notes that in December 1983 consultants warned that Donnington's building B1 was fundamentally unsuited to the storage of ú320 million of materials and `was amongst the worst fire risks they had ever seen and was likely on average to burn once every five years' (para 2.13); notes that comprehensive programme of measures drawn up in 1984 was not implemented and `when another high density store (building B1) was substantially destroyed at Donnington in 1988 the service had not completed any major structural fire protections measures' (Page 4), a failure resulting in a lost of ú180 million; notes (Page 1(c)) that `reports were made to Ministers up until February 1985'; notes newspaper allegations that this second fire leaves fighting forces facing shortages of tank spares; and asks the Secretary of State for Defence 1983-86 to explain why: (i) warnings were ignored, (ii) funds for fire protection were not available and (iii) Ministerial monitoring was discontinued.

This motion has been signed by a total of 34 MPs.