Yahoo Movies Grant Shapps Does Not Rule Out Using Military To Tackle Fuel Crisis
Grant Shapps has not ruled out bringing in the military to help deal with the fuel crisis.
Speaking on Friday morning, the transport secretary tried to dissuade drivers from panic buying petrol, after BP was forced to close down a handful of its forecourts.
“The advice would be to carry on as normal, and that is what BP is saying as well,” he told Sky News.
Asked in a separate interview with LBC if the military could be deployed, he said: “I certainly won’t rule anything out at all, we’ll look at all the various different contingency measures.”
On Thursday BP said it had closed a “handful” of its petrol forecourts due to a lock of available fuel.
A “small number” of Tesco refilling stations have also been impacted, said Esso owner ExxonMobil, which runs the sites.
Shapps promised he would do what is needed to ensure that petrol gets to drivers.
“I’ll move heaven and Earth to do anything that’s required to make sure that lorries carry on moving our goods and services and petrol around the country,” he said.
He denied that Brexit was the culprit in the UK’s recent shortage of lorry drivers, arguing that the split from the European Union has helped the government react.
At a meeting a week ago BP reportedly told the Government that the company was struggling to get fuel to its forecourts.
Its head of UK retail Hanna Hofer described the situation as “bad, very bad”, according to a report by ITV News.
BP had “two-thirds of normal forecourt stock levels required for smooth operations”, she said, adding that the level is “declining rapidly”.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost UK and has been updated.
