Fuel shortages – live: Shapps admits Brexit is a ‘factor’ in oil crisis as Boris Johnson urged end panic buying

The independent is hosting a virtual event on October 6, hosted by our chief political commentator John Rentoul, where a panel of experts will explore the pros and cons of the reality of Brexit and what the future holds for a UK divorced from the EU.

• Emily Carver, head of media at the Institute of Economic Affairs, and previously a policy adviser to a Tory MP.
• Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics, King’s College, London
• Anna Isaac, Economic Editor of The Independent

To register, click on the article link below:

Teachers should have priority access to fuel in the event of supply problems, otherwise they will further disrupt children’s education, a teachers’ union has warned.

Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, called on ministers to take action to ensure teachers and support staff can work and schools and colleges can stay open.

He warned that fuel shortages are expected to cause “serious difficulties” for education provision.

Dr Roach said: “For many teachers, using public transport is just not an option, with many schools in areas that are difficult to reach other than using private vehicles.

“The government must urgently consider making teachers a priority group for access to locally available gasoline and diesel.

“Without such intervention, many teachers will find it difficult to get to their places of work on time, adding to the uncertainty and daily disruption that children and young people face. “

The government continued to face calls to give priority access to fuel supplies to health workers and other essential workers.

Labor is bracing for Boris Johnson to suspend the Northern Ireland protocol at next week’s Tories conference, to ease the ‘drama’ and distract from the fuel crisis.

Jenny Chapman, party spokesperson for Brexit, has revealed that she expects Article 16 of the Treaty to be invoked within days – sparking further upheaval in EU-UK relations, writes The independents deputy political editor Rob Merrick.

The government continued to threaten the move – despite experts warning it offers no escape from post-Brexit trade barriers – after Brussels rejected the rewrite of the protocol.

Labor MP Neil Coyle is unimpressed with Grant Shapps’ admission today that Brexit could have played a role in Britain’s ongoing fuel crisis.

In his tweet, Mr Coyle refers to a comment by Mr Shapps last week that Britain outside the EU helped the country tackle the driver shortage.

He said on Twitter: “So Shapps says Brexit contributed to a problem, but being out of the EU meant GB could fix a situation that wouldn’t have happened if we had stayed in the single market … Weaker than a 1 watt bulb. “

Frustrated drivers waiting for fuel in South West London today blamed the government, the media and each other for the lingering chaos on the forecourt.

John Lunn, 46, a carpenter from Wrotham in Kent, said the public had not “learned our lessons” from the Covid-19 panic buying crisis.

“I expected the worst, we passed at least 10 garages on the way,” he told the Pennsylvania news agency, speaking in a queue at a gas station in Wandsworth.

“This is really total madness, I’m not funny, but we didn’t learn our lessons from the toilet rolls and the pasta.

“After all that has happened with buying food and not necessarily needing it, we are now doing it with fuel.

“They mention that there might be a shortage of information and people have gone mad. If they hadn’t mentioned it people would have spent their day refueling as usual, it wouldn’t have happened.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps admitted Brexit was a ‘factor’ behind the fuel crisis – despite his previous claims, the UK’s exit from the EU had helped the country adjust supply chain issues.

Mr Shapps insisted only last week that cynics were ‘wrong’ to blame Brexit for the drastic shortage of HGV drivers causing empty supermarket shelves and the closing of gas stations.

After repeatedly blaming the fuel crisis on panicked buyers, and away from Brexit, Grant Shapps appears to have admitted that the complications of the divorce deal likely played a role in the ongoing issues.

“The Brexit I hear has been mentioned a lot and that will undoubtedly have been a factor,” he said.

However, the transport secretary pointed out that the main cause of the shortage was the cancellation of heavy truck driving tests last year due to the pandemic.

“[Leaving the EU] actually helped us change the rules so that we could test more pilots faster, ”he said. “So it actually worked both ways.”

Some expert comments now. Saxo Markets financial expert Mike Owens said the oil crisis is likely to ease in the coming days. The shortage of LGV (large good vehicle) drivers, on the other hand, is a much longer and more difficult process for the UK to manage, he warns.

Mr. Owens, who is a global salesperson at Saxo, said:

“Logistical issues affecting gasoline suppliers may have caused concern for many when searching for fuel over the weekend, but there is no real fuel shortage or sign that these delivery problems will have much more than a temporary upward impact on the price. At this point, you also expect that the garages will be sufficiently restocked in the next few days and the problem will start to resolve itself.

“Far more worrying for UK consumers is the price of wholesale gas and oil which continues to rise in recent weeks as demand increases and countries continue to seek supplies before winter.

“The shortage of LGV drivers, which in the UK has been exacerbated by Brexit but also present in other countries due to the pandemic, will only be resolved when enough drivers are trained and available to meet growing needs. supply of the country. Until then, it looks a bit like a mole game as the strain moves from fresh produce to fuel to consumer goods as Christmas approaches.

A little more of Grant Shapps now. In his clip compiled for news outlets, the Transport Secretary said on Tuesday there had been reports of customers filling plastic water bottles with gasoline amid continued panic shopping. .

“[They] should not be used, ”he said simply. “It’s dangerous and extremely unnecessary.

He also dismissed criticism that the government has been too slow to mobilize the military to help deal with the fuel crisis.

“The system was on the verge of coping until last weekend and it would have been able to continue to do so,” Mr. Shapps said. “Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with toilet rolls and other things, once people start looking for a particular item it can quickly escalate.”

He added: “But there is only a limited amount of gasoline that you can transfer to tanks. It is starting to catch on. “