National Emergency Plan for Fuel

Lord Sikka Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I cannot speak in any detail for the Ministry of Defence, but the noble and gallant Lord can be assured that the question of bunkering and keeping supplies, particularly of jet fuel, is very much directed in conjunction with both civil aviation and military requirements. The question, as he implies, is a further one of prices. It is a matter of looking at how best a particularly targeted intervention can be undertaken in future to ensure that prices do not undermine various activities in this country. The Government are keeping a close watch on that at the moment.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, the national emergency plan for fuel remains a contingency for crisis. Its objectives include protection of human life and alleviation of suffering. Since 2020, energy companies have made £125 billion in profits and around 120,000 people a year die in fuel poverty. Does the Minister agree that there is a crisis and that lives can be saved by curbing profiteering by energy companies?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

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.