Downing Street Says » Fuel Strike

» Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Fuel Strike

Asked if the Prime Minister had any thoughts on the fuel protests, the PMS said that it was a dispute about pay and he wouldn’t class it as a fuel protest. Asked whether the Prime Minister had any thoughts on the implications of fuel tanker drivers going on strike, the PMS said that the Governments general position on this was that it was disappointing that talks between Unite and Hoyer had so far been unsuccessful. It was encouraging nonetheless that both parties had agreed to meet with the conciliation service ACAS in the coming days. We encouraged both sides to get back to the table to reach a resolution to avoid any disruption to people’s lives and livelihoods. We did not believe that any strike action would be justified as that would disproportionately impact on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the country not involved in the dispute.

As you would expect, the Government was working with the wider fuel industry on what could be done to reduce any disruption to the public and businesses. There were established procedures in place and these were recently used to good effect in Scotland during the Grangemouth dispute. Asked to be more specific about the procedures, the PMS said there was an established memorandum of understanding with the fuel industry that had been in force since last Friday. This allowed the industry to work more closely with the Department for Business while remaining within the scope of competition laws. For example, it would allow fuel companies to share information they had about stocks of fuel that each of them held, which might otherwise have not been possible under existing competition law provisions.

The PMS added that the Government believed that this strike was unnecessary and we would want to ensure that nothing was done to inconvenience the public. The most responsible thing the public could do was to continue to buy as normal.

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Fuel Strike

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