Downing Street Says » Oil prices

Asked if the Prime Minister could do anything to alleviate the affect of rising oil prices on British consumers, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that the Prime Minister had spoken about oil prices during his speech at the Google Zeitgeist Conference on Monday. He said that this was something that he was concerned about and that had an affect on the UK economy, which was why he was working with international partners to look at what could be done to work with OPEC in order to free up supply into the market. This was one of the things the Prime Minister intended to discuss when next in an EU forum and also at the G8 in July.

Asked if there was anything the Prime Minister could do domestically regarding fuel prices, the PMS said that that had been dealt with in the last Budget but that, as journalists knew, taxation was a matter for the Chancellor.

Asked if the Prime Minister believed that the rise in oil prices was as great a threat to the economy as the credit crunch, the PMS referred journalists to what the Prime Minister had said in the Q&A section of the Google conference on Monday where he spoke quite extensively about the impact oil and food prices were having on the international economy, and the importance of looking internationally to introduce measures that reduced protectionism in both these areas.

Asked if there was anything the Prime Minister could do sooner as the EU summit was at the end of June and the G8 summit was in July, the PMS replied that these issues were being discussed on an international level all the time. On food prices, for example, the Prime Minister met with a wide range of international representatives last month and the Chancellor was having a private meeting on this issue in No 11 Downing Street today.

Put that Cabinet had discussed on Tuesday how to make the economy less dependent on oil and asked for some examples as to how that could happen, the PMS replied that the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) was already looking at how we could increase the proportion of renewables in our fuel mix and pointed to the decisions that had been taken on nuclear energy.

Asked if we should be driving our cars less, the PMS replied that issues of cars and emissions particularly, were taken into account in the Budget.

Asked who the Chancellor was meeting with today, the PMS said that it was a private meeting about food prices and it was best to check with the department for details.

1 Comment »

The government should show clear leadership in the area of tackling fuel poverty by defining some short and long term goals to alleviate public fears. Some suggestions are as follows:

Conduct a survey to define the nation’s energy and insulation needs through the proposed home energy inspectorate.

Provide fuel grants and provide insulation to those groups at most risk – the elderly, sick and poor.

Encourage research and development in universities and industry. Plan and build a system of stand alone micro generators using renewable energy and fuel cells, as well as working alongside the proposed nuclear regeneration plan.

Invest in cutting edge technology such as fusion nuclear power, fuel cells, hydrogen power and even futuristic ideas such as beamed microwaves from geostationary solar power plants / sea solar power plants, bio plants using nano technology or bacteria, that can turn any waste product into methane,hydrogen gas and bio diesel for fuel.
Create a culture of conservation and provide land for allotments so people can grow their own food.
Comment by Orion Hale — 31 May 2008 on 1:24 am | Link

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Thursday, May 22, 2008

Oil prices

1 Comment »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries