Ukraine: Gas Supplies

Lord Ezra Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ezra]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to safeguard gas supplies in view of possible developments in Ukraine.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con)]

My Lords, we currently do not have any disruption to gas supply through Ukraine. We have a range of different gas supply sources and high storage levels. The risk to our energy supply is low. We do not anticipate that a disruption to gas transiting Ukraine would have an impact on the UK’s physical gas supply, particularly as we currently source less than 1% of our gas from Russia, but we are monitoring the situation very closely.

[Lord Ezra (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her Answer, but even if, as we hope, the crisis in Ukraine blows over, should we not, as a matter of long-term policy, aim to reduce our dependence on imported gas and to regain energy self-sufficiency, which stood us in good stead over so many years?