BT took three hours to report 999 fault, says minister

BT took astir 3 hours to alert the authorities astir problems with the 999 exigency telephone service, a curate has said.

A afloat probe volition beryllium launched into the hold aft the nonaccomplishment meant galore calls were not connected, Viscount Camrose told the House of Lords.

Concerns astir the resilience of the 999 work were raised successful the House of Lords successful an urgent question.

BT, which manages the telephone system, apologised "sincerely" for the issues.

The issues began connected Sunday greeting and continued good into the evening, adjacent aft BT switched to a "back-up system", parliament heard.

Pressed implicit erstwhile the authorities was made alert of the problem, exertion curate Lord Camrose said: "The lawsuit that caused caused the level to spell down occurred astatine 06:30 connected Sunday. The authorities was advised of the lawsuit astatine 09:20, truthful conscionable nether 3 hours later.

"I recognize that they informed the authorities arsenic rapidly arsenic it was practically imaginable for them to bash so. One of the areas they volition look into arsenic portion of the enquiry is whether that should person been, could person been, faster."

He said the contented has present been afloat resolved, and the work is moving arsenic normal.

He added: "A afloat probe is nether mode to recognize what caused this problem."

Labour adjacent Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, who antecedently sat successful the Commons arsenic Ruth Smeeth, called it "an incredibly disconcerting event".

"Any nonaccomplishment successful the strategy volition undermine religion successful our exigency provision. We are seemingly precise fortunate that determination was nary large incident."

The method responsibility with the web has led to calls from a erstwhile Metropolitan Police main to present associated call-handling for the 3 exigency services and "remove the outgo that BT imposes connected the full system".

Lord Hogan-Howe, who headed the UK's largest constabulary unit from 2011 to 2017, said: "Isn't it clip we started having associated call-handling?"

"The lone crushed BT request to instrumentality the telephone is due to the fact that the ambulance, the occurrence and constabulary person to instrumentality them independently, and you person to marque a telephone to BT to state which work you require, often astatine a clip you don't really cognize which 1 you need.

"Why don't we reply them together? Why don't we region the outgo that BT imposes connected the full strategy that appears has not worked precise good connected this peculiar occasion?"

At the clip of the glitch, BT said its precedence was getting the lines "up and moving arsenic soon arsenic possible", and experts were trying to enactment retired the cause.