Lights 'won't go out' this winter
November 23, 2005
The lights across Britain will not go out this winter "under any scenario whatsoever", Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson has insisted.
He gave the assurance despite experts predicting the country is about to face the coldest winter in a decade.
It also comes amid fears about rising gas prices and energy supplies.
But Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks told MPs the National Grid was "awash with gas". He accused the Conservatives of trying to "talk up a crisis".
'No blackout'
Mr Wicks, who was answering an urgent Commons question on energy supplies, said some heavy business users of gas, particularly chemical companies, were suffering from high gas prices.
However, he said it was up to individual companies to decide when and how they bought their energy supplies.
Tory shadow energy minister Bernard Jenkin said "industry will be astonished to hear you saying that we are awash with gas when they are facing the prospect of interruptions to their gas supplies".
Earlier Mr Johnson, giving evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee, said intensive users of energy "may see an effect" if the cold snap is worse than predicted this year.
But he added: "Those that predicted that the lights might go off this winter in the media and had front page stories saying 'blackout' unnecessarily worried some very vulnerable and elderly people.
"That's not going to happen under any scenario whatsoever."
Nuclear option
He spoke out as the government is about to announce a review of energy policy, including nuclear power.
He said he was "completely neutral" over the prospect of returning to the use of nuclear power.
"We are genuinely open-minded and there's no predetermined outcome for this," he said.
He said the nuclear option would obviously be considered, along with renewable alternatives like tidal power.
Affordability
But he said: "This is not a nuclear review - it's an energy review."
There was "no expectation of taxpayers' money being thrown into" a new nuclear building programme - it would be down to the private sector to fund it, he said.
"I think there's a fair argument there that they are actually waiting to see what the political temperature is and what government's approach here is going to be before they make hard and fast plans," he said.
Any decision to go forward with the nuclear option would be based on security of supply, affordability and carbon emissions.
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