The chief executive of National Grid has claimed that Heathrow Airport had enough power from other substations despite Friday’s shutdown.

Around 1,300 flights were affected after a fire knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes on Thursday evening. Operations were not able to resume until Friday evening.

John Pettigrew from National Grid said there were two other substations “always available for the distribution network companies and Heathrow to take power”.

In his first comments since the disruption, Mr Pettigrew told the Financial Times: “There was no lack of capacity from the substations.

“Each substation individually can provide enough power to Heathrow.”

He added: “Losing a substation is a unique event – but there were two others available.

“So that is a level of resilience.”

In response to the comments, a Heathrow Airport spokesperson said: “As the National Grid’s chief executive, John Pettigrew, noted, he has never seen a transformer failure like this in his 30 years in the industry.

“His view confirms that this was an unprecedented incident and that it would not have been possible for Heathrow to operate uninterrupted.

“Hundreds of critical systems across the airport were required to be safely powered down and then safely and systematically rebooted. Given Heathrow’s size and operational complexity, safely restarting operations after a disruption of this magnitude was a significant challenge.”

Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye previously said a back-up transformer failed during the power outage, meaning systems had to be closed in accordance with safety procedures so power supplies could be restructured from two remaining substations.

Read more:
What will the economic impact be?
How can Heathrow avoid another crisis?
Heathrow shutdown in numbers

But it has emerged that a report by consultancy firm Jacobs more than 10 years ago found a “key weakness” of Heathrow’s electricity supply was “main transmission line connections to the airport”.

The document, published in 2014, stated “outages could cause disruption to passenger, baggage and aircraft handling functions”, and “could require closure of areas of affected terminals or potentially the entire airport”.

In its appraisal of operational risk at the airport, Jacobs said provision of on-site generation and other measures to ensure resilient supply appeared “to be adequate” to enable Heathrow “to withstand and recover from interruptions to supply”.

The report added that the airport operated “within risk parameters that are not excessive or unusual for an airport of its type”.

Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officers initially led the investigation but the force said the fire is not believed to be suspicious so the London Fire Brigade is now leading the probe which will focus on the electrical distribution equipment.

Heathrow is Europe’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024. Around 200,000 passengers were affected by Friday’s closure.

The chancellor has said she is “confident” 10,000 civil service jobs can be axed after numbers ballooned during the pandemic – as she seeks to cut more than £2bn from the budget.

Rachel Reeves has told Sky News she is certain the government can deliver those cuts to “back office jobs” to free up resources for “front line” services.

She is expected to unveil a raft of spending cuts during the spring statement on Wednesday – and has reportedly ruled out tax rises.

The FDA union has said the government needs to be honest about the move, first reported by The Telegraph, and the “impact it will have on public services”.

Reeves concedes cuts won’t be pain-free

Appearing on Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme, the chancellor was pushed repeatedly for a precise number of civil service jobs she wants to cut, and she eventually replied: “I’m confident that we can reduce civil service numbers by 10,000.

“And during COVID, there were big increases in the number of people that were working in the civil service.

“That was the right thing to do to respond to those challenges. But it’s not right that we just keep those numbers there forever.”

Ms Reeves said there are “a number” of civil service jobs that can be done by technology, while “efficiencies” can also be made by getting rid of quangos.

Asked what roles she expects to no longer need, she said: “It will be up for every department to set out those plans.

“But I would rather have people working on the front line in our schools and our hospitals and our police, rather than back office jobs.”

She said cuts will be made to things like travel budgets, spending on consultants, and also on communications.

She conceded that the cuts will not be pain free, but says she would rather spend money to “deliver better public services”.

Civil service departments will first have to reduce administrative budgets by 10%, which is expected to save £1.5bn a year by 2028-29.

The following year, the reduction should be 15%, the Cabinet Office will say – a saving of £2.2bn a year.

The chancellor has also said she won’t be putting up taxes on Wednesday, telling The Sun On Sunday: “This is not a budget. We’re not going to be doing tax raising.”

Ms Reeves added: “We did have to put up some taxes on businesses and the wealthiest in the country in the budget [in the autumn].

“We will not be doing that in the spring statement next week.”

The chancellor has repeatedly insisted she won’t drop her fiscal rules which preclude borrowing to fund day-to-day spending.

Civil service departments will receive instructions from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden in the coming week, The Telegraph reported.

“To deliver our Plan for Change we will reshape the state so it is fit for the future. We cannot stick to business as usual,” a Cabinet Office source said.

“By cutting administrative costs we can target resources at frontline services – with more teachers in classrooms, extra hospital appointments and police back on the beat.”

The move comes after the government last week revealed welfare cuts it believes will save £5bn a year by the end of the decade.

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

FDA general secretary Dave Penman said the union welcomed a move away from “crude headcount targets” but that the distinction between the back office and frontline is “artificial”.

“Elected governments are free to decide the size of the civil service they want, but cuts of this scale and speed will inevitably have an impact on what the civil service will be able to deliver for ministers and the country…

“The budgets being cut will, for many departments, involve the majority of their staff and the £1.5bn savings mentioned equates to nearly 10% of the salary bill for the entire civil service.”

Ministers need to set out what areas of work they are prepared to stop as part of spending plans, he said.

“The idea that cuts of this scale can be delivered by cutting HR and comms teams is for the birds. This plan will require ministers to be honest with the public and their civil servants about the impact this will have on public services.”

Read more:
Analysis: UK growth forecast set for major downgrade
What could be announced in the spring statement?
The spring statement – what you need to know

Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, warned that “a cheaper civil service is not the same as a better civil service”.

“Prospect has consistently warned government against adopting arbitrary targets for civil service headcount cuts which are more about saving money than about genuine civil service reform.

“The government say they will not fall into this trap again. But this will require a proper assessment of what the civil service will and won’t do in future.”

The mother of a teenage boy who was shot dead has urged the public to come forward with any information which could help find her son’s killer eight months on. 

Rene Graham was just 15 years old when he was killed in Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance Park, Ladbroke Grove, on 21 July 2024.

He had been attending a warm-up event for the Notting Hill Carnival with friends. But the family fun day turned into tragedy when Rene was gunned down in front of hundreds of revellers.

“It’s broken, shattered my life… It’s killing me on the inside,” says his mother Janay John-Francois, who says her son was a “vibrant” teenager, with the “biggest heart”.

“I’m fuming about it. I’m fuming because right now it seems I’m not going to get justice for my son,” says Ms John-Francois.

“How does that happen?” his mother asks. “In broad daylight with over a thousand people in that small park?… it’s beyond me.”

Ms John-Francois says the grieving process cannot begin until she has answers and she will not feel safe until her son’s killer is caught.

“I go down that road and I am looking over my shoulder. I don’t know who it could be, and that messes up your head. Because you are thinking, is my family safe? Do they know who I am?” says Ms John-Francois.

“You can’t live like that,” she adds.

The Metropolitan Police says it has issued four separate police appeals and continues to appeal for witnesses to come forward with information.

But it says the response so far has been “minimal”.

Read more from Sky News:
How much could Heathrow closure cost the UK economy?
Germany approves a change in fiscal rules to boost defence spending

“We know from reviewing CCTV from inside the park that many people were filming on the day, and these videos could hold crucial information for us,” says DCI Alison Foxwell, who is leading the investigation.

“We urge anybody with footage to contact police on 101 with the reference 01/621769/24 as soon as possible,” she adds.

But Ms John-Francois holds others accountable.

For much of his life, Rene had been in care.

His mother admits she wasn’t always able to support her child in the ways he needed.

“I put my hands up and say that I was young, I was 15. I could have done a lot of things differently,” says Ms John-Francois.

But she says she believes her son was not properly protected when he was removed from her care. And this, she says, is unforgivable.

“They weren’t as involved as they should have been,” Ms John-Francois says.

“He had no structure in his life. No school, nothing for five years… and down to all of that, he ended up where he was, living the life he was living.”

“They failed him and I need them to take responsibility for that,” she adds.

A spokesperson for Westminster City Council said: “We do our best in complicated circumstances to help young people as they grow up. We supported Rene over several years and every decision the council made was driven by Rene’s welfare and with his family’s involvement.”

They added: “The loss of a child, in such horrific circumstances, is impossible to imagine and we continue to express our deepest sympathy to Rene’s mother and his whole family.”

But Ms John-Francois says she does not want or need sympathy. Instead, she says she wants to ensure other children at not “failed” in similar ways.

More importantly, she wants her son’s killer found and justice brought.