Downing Street Says » Fuel Strike

Asked for a read out of Cabinet and if there was any discussion on the crisis at the pumps that might be looming, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) replied that at Cabinet the main items discussed were an update from Geoff Hoon and Jacqui Smith on where we were on 42 days, Ed Balls talked about under performing schools, there was a wide ranging discussion on immigration led by Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears with Liam Byrne, and Shaun Woodwood updated Cabinet on Northern Ireland. On the issue mentioned, John Hutton had been in Luxembourg today so was not at Cabinet, so there was really just a brief reference from the Prime Minister saying that this was something that John Hutton and his department were dealing with.

Asked if there was another Minister from the department present in John Hutton’s absence, the PMS replied that normally if a Cabinet Minister was absent then the department would not send a representative. But there was no shortage of Whitehall activity on this front.

Asked what this Whitehall activity was, the PMS replied that there had been various inter-departmental meetings in recent days to discuss the contingency arrangements.

Asked what the contingency arrangements were, the PMS replied that for example we had an established memorandum of understanding with the fuel industry that had been in force since last Friday. This allowed the oil industry to work more closely with the Department for Business whilst remaining within the scope of competition law. These procedures were recently used to good effect in Scotland during the Grangemouth dispute.

Asked if there had been talk of fuel being safeguarded for security of the emergency services, the PMS replied that obviously there were a number of contingencies being considered. The main measure that was enacted as a result of the memorandum of understanding that was brought into force last Friday was enabling oil companies to share information about fuel stocks that they hold without violating competion law. Competition law prohibited the oil companies getting together to talk about what fuel stocks they held, and clearly in a situation like this people would like to see some co-ordination between the oil companies. So we were enabling them to exchange information on fuel stocks without them being in breach of competition law. Of course the Government was very mindful of the needs of the emergency services should there be any issues arising out of this strike, and these were all being factored in to the Government’s contingency planning.

Asked if the Government was confident that the emergency services would not run out of fuel, the PMS replied that clearly the Government had well established mechanisms for ensuring that the emergency service could continue to function.

Asked if the Government was confident that ordinary pumps would not run out, the PMS replied that our general position on this as we were saying this morning, was that we would like to avoid a situation arising whereby the strike occurred in the first place. It was disappointing that the talks had broken down, we encouraged both sides to get back to the table, but of course a responsible government had to put in place contingency measures to try and minimise disruption to the public.

Asked if contingency planning involved talking to the Scottish Executive, the PMS replied that whatever discussions needed to take place with the Scottish Executive would have taken place, but it was best to talk to the department on the exact measures.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

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.

» Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Fuel Strike

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries