L

Lord Whitehead (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 28 April 2026

Debate

National Emergency Plan for Fuel

Contribution

Yes, the noble Lord asks me whether there is a crisis and there is one in place at the moment. However, we have considerable difficulty in determining exactly its direction and depth, precisely because we do not know what the position is and will be, particularly concerning the Strait of Hormuz, for the future. The response to that crisis, as far as the Government are concerned, clearly has to be to take every measure possible to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz is open—and open without tolls—for the passage of fuel across the world, but we do not know how long that will last. The plans that we are therefore undertaking, particularly given the prices that may be an issue in global fuel scarcity, with various people trying to cannibalise everybody else’s fuel supply, are under our control nationally. We can therefore indeed intervene, if necessary, to make sure that those prices remain as stable as possible and, particularly as far as those who are in fuel poverty are concerned, that more people do not fall into fuel poverty as a result of those problems.

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