Sunday shows: Labour says government should be preparing to ration oil and gas

Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has said the government should be ‘making plans’ and preparing to follow EU countries’ example to ration oil and gas in light of the energy crisis and conflict in Ukraine.

• On the cost-of-living crisis: “I feel angry at the scale of the crisis people in this country are facing and the lack of response from government in the Spring Statement… promises on things, announcements in the future, just won’t cut it.”
• On immediate-term measures Labour is proposing: “We have set out that windfall tax that would give households a huge amount of help relative to what the government are doing – up to £600 for households who are most affected… And we put in that a contingency fund for businesses, a £600m fund.”
• On longer-term measures: “The long-term strategy has to be a much better energy policy than we’ve had in this country for the last 12 years… We’ve set out in terms of what Labour’s plans are: that big climate investment pledge that Rachel Reeves made at Labour Party conference.”
• On how the opposition party would invest that £28bn: “We would spend that on things like, first of all, energy efficiency because there’s a massive amount that can be done to lower this country’s demand for gas… but also, yes, we would for instance not have that ban on onshore wind.”
• He added: “The windfall tax is about the here and now. The investment pledge is about the future… We’ve got real support now and the long-term plan for the future. I simply say that the government’s got to meet them.”
• Asked whether the UK should be planning to ration oil and gas as other countries are doing: “We should be making those plans and the government should be preparing, not necessarily in public, for that situation.”
• Reynolds said the government should announce a plan that is “not simply shopping from one authoritarian regime to the next for fossil fuels”.
• He added: “But let’s be clear, we’re looking at the images coming out of Ukraine right now, I don’t think we should be talking about going back to business as usual where we just buy large quantities of fossil fuels.”
• Asked whether Carrie Johnson, Boris Johnson’s wife, should be named if she is issued with a fine in the ‘partygate’ scandal: “Yes, I think anyone who’s been in Downing Street should be named if they have been part of this… People want to know some transparency as to what really went on.”

Labour says the government should be preparing to ration oil and gas

Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds tells #SundayMorning “we should be making those plans” and criticises government “complacency”https://t.co/TBwWX0wQWs pic.twitter.com/u55nebr3QA

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) April 3, 2022

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps rejected that the government should be considering rationing oil and gas and ruled out the prospect, telling viewers that ministers “don’t see rationing being part of our approach”.

Sophy Ridge on Sunday

Reynolds told viewers that the government “hasn’t done enough” to support households with rising energy prices, saying Rishi Sunak’s ‘buy-now-pay-later’ scheme is “completely unrealistic and doesn’t meet the scale of the challenge”.

• On the conflict in Ukraine: “What this country has done, what NATO has done, in terms of supplying lethal aid to the Ukrainians is obviously the right thing to have done and I think that needs to continue and step up as we get to a new phase of this conflict where clearly Ukrainians are having some success.”
• On the Spring Statement: “What I wanted from the Spring Statement was almost, a sort of, a war-time statement in terms of energy. You know, how we were going to make sure we weren’t still – as we are right now, as a Western community – buying substantial amounts of fossil fuels from Russia.”
• On the government’s approach to Ukrainian refugees: “The rhetoric, after the initial period, has been where it needs to be. The delivery of that is a further question… When you see what other countries are coping with and doing it is hard to say that, as of yet, we have met the scale of that challenge.”
• On sanctions imposed on Russia since the renewed invasion of Ukraine began: “They will have an effect and they are having an effect because the level of sanctions are very significant.”
• On the cost-of-living crisis: “The government hasn’t done enough. There’s no way they can say they’ve done enough. The scheme they put forward, I think where the Chancellor is offering to lend us our own money and pay it back over five years, is completely unrealistic and doesn’t meet the scale of the challenge.”
• On Labour’s tax offer: “We wouldn’t have proceeded with the National Insurance rise… we would have done that windfall tax to help people with their energy bills… on business rates, which is a huge expense for business, we would have frozen the valuations, we would have increased the threshold at which businesses pay business rates… we would do real help for people now.”
• On Russia and fossil-fuel dependence: “One thing that’s different now, because of what Russia has done, there’s an argument about substitution – about supplies that would have perhaps come from Russia coming from other parts of the world… But anyone who thinks bills or supply in the long term can be solved by more dependence on fossil fuels – that is a mistake.”
• On the withdrawal of the Conservative whip from David Warburton and the “culture” in parliament: “I don’t think politics is any different, in my experience, to other high-pressure sectors in relation to how people behave.”

"Sanctions have had an effect."@jreynoldsMP says the level of sanctions on Russia are "very significant", but says a long term solution to reducing dependency on Russian gas is in renewable energy.#Ridge: https://t.co/Z1V4Hpi6Dr

📺 Sky 501, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/iimT6SGZ1B

— Sophy Ridge on Sunday (@RidgeOnSunday) April 3, 2022

Asked whether the Chancellor could do more to help families with rapidly rising prices and bills, Grant Shapps said that he is sure Sunak is “always looking” at how the government could ease the pressure on households.

On wind farms, the Shadow Transport Secretary: “I don’t favour a vast increase in onshore wind farms… they sit on the hills there and can create something of an eyesore for communities as well as actual problems of noise as well.”

He added: “For reasons of environmental protection, the way to go with this is largely – not entirely but largely – off-sea… Britain’s got more off-sea, offshore, wind power than any other country in the world and I think we could do with expanding that further still.”

Times Radio

Jonathan Reynolds said rationing energy in the UK would be a “disaster for households and for businesses”, arguing: “The fact that you’re even asking the question is an indictment of Conservative energy policy over the past decade.”

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