There is no immediate threat to energy supplies in the UK despite rocketing oil prices, a senior minister has said, as Keir Starmer tried to reassure people about the impact of the crisis in the Middle East.
The impact of US-Israeli strikes in Iran, and retaliatory attacks from Tehran elsewhere in the region, was “clearly very concerning”, Steve Reed, the communities secretary said, adding that much depended on how long hostilities continued.
Starmer was due to visit a community centre in London later on Monday, where he was due to give comments aimed at providing reassurance, saying the most important issue for him was the cost of living.
But in a series of broadcast interviews on Monday, with oil prices shooting past $100 (£75) a barrel, Reed accepted that there was not much the UK government could do to shape events, or the impact they had on the country.
“We don’t yet know how long this conflict will go on for,” he told BBC One’s Breakfast programme. “It could be over in days. It could continue for longer. So I think the sensible and rational response from government is to monitor the situation and make sure we’re prepared.”
Reed said: “It’s clearly very concerning what’s going on in the Middle East. There’s no point to him trying to pretend anything other than that is the case. But the government will be keeping a very close eye on the situation with oil prices. We’re monitoring that regularly. I don’t think that there is cause for undue alarm yet.”
There were, he added, sufficient supplies remaining of oil and of gas. Government sources have dismissed as incorrect a report in Monday’s Times claiming the UK only had two days of gas supplies.
Simon Williams, the RAC’s head of policy, said petrol and diesel prices had “rocketed” in the last week. “Petrol is up 5p to 137.5p and diesel up 9p to 151p a litre since the current crisis began,” he said.
“Unleaded is almost certainly going to reach an average of 140p in the next week or so while diesel looks highly likely to climb to at least 160p a litre.”
“We encourage drivers to continue filling up as normal but to shop around for the best prices using apps like myRAC as there can be big local differences between forecourts. Driving fuel efficiently by avoiding harsh accelerating and braking and ensuring tyres are inflated to the right pressures can help eke out every last mile and save money.”
In comments released by No 10 before his visit, Starmer said that as well as being worried about loved ones in the Middle East, Britons were “rightly worrying what this means for life at home – their bills, their jobs, their communities”.
He went on: “I want to address those concerns head on. I will always be guided by what is best for the British public. And no matter the headwinds, supporting working people and their families with the cost of living is always top of my mind.”
Starmer argued that because of existing government policies over the previous month, such global shocks would “weigh less heavy on people’s lives”.
Reed reiterated this point in his interviews, arguing in particular that another fossil fuel price shock, after the impact on gas prices of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, showed the need for a move towards renewable energy.
“If the previous government had done what this government is doing, and had driven the switch to clean energy, so more wind, wave and solar power, power and more nuclear power, then we wouldn’t be at the mercy of people like the ayatollahs in Iran or Vladimir Putin in Russia,” he said.
Reed added that while the government was closely watching the situation in the Middle East – where the strait of Hormuz, through which large numbers of oil tankers usually pass, is in effect blocked – “there is no threat to supplies into the country at the moment”.
He added: “The government, of course, all of us, are looking at what’s happening with the oil crisis. We have to keep that under review to make sure that we’re taking any action that might be, that might be required. But we don’t know how long the situation is going to go on for.”
