The government is not advising people to reduce their overall energy consumption while refusing to rule out rationing in the future, a minister has said.
Climate minister Graham Stuart said that the government is avoiding looking at reducing overall use and is instead supporting the energy regulator to provide incentives for businesses and consumers to cut peak-time energy demand if required. During a series of broadcast interviews on Friday morning, he said the UK's energy security is "pretty strong".
He also claimed that National Grid energy blackouts are "unlikely" during the winter, and shot down a report in The Times which claimed Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg signed off on a £15 million public information campaign about using less energy this winter which the Prime Minister ruled out.
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Speaking to Sky News, Mr Stuart said: "I don’t recognise that. We are in an iterative process of policy development and ideas, and we come to a conclusion. The idea there was some highly developed campaign… passionately devoted to and Number 10 nixed it, I don’t recognise that.”
It comes after the National Grid Electricity System Operator said households and businesses on Thursday that they may face three-hour outages to ensure the grid doesn't collapse. While Mr Stuart said such a scenario was "unlikely", he refused to exclude the possibility of energy rationing throughout the winter when pressed on LBC.
In August, Prime Minister Liz Truss was asked during her leadership campaign whether she could rule out energy rationing, to which she replied: "I do rule that out." When asked about the same policy, Mr Stuart said: "The National Grid, we get to do it independently, and they do their assessment. They’ve said it’s very unlikely.”
When pressed again he began saying "it's impossible to..." before being interrupted and pressed over whether the government's position is a U-turn on Ms Truss' pledges. Mr Stuart added: "We are not planning to have that. It is not our intention to have it and we are doing everything possible to mean that it should not happen.”
He continued: "Events move on, as you well know. We’ve seen all sorts of threats to our energy security.” He also stressed that the government does not want people to reduce their overall consumption.
"We are not sending that out as a message," he told BBC Breakfast. However, he acknowledged that "all of us have bills, of course, and the bills have gone up". He also told Sky News: "The last thing you want to do is tell someone, you know, switch things off for the national need when it makes no difference to the national security position.
“In other countries, it’s more about reducing overall energy use. For us, it’s not so much about that, it’s about reducing the demand at time of peak,” he added when speaking to LBC.
“We’ve worked with Ofgem and National Grid and others to make sure we’ve got the maximum flex we can, in the very unlikely scenario there was a supply shortage.
“For us, it’s all about the peak. It’s about meeting these peaks rather than the kind of overall usage in terms of security of supply. And likewise using the smart meter technology that’s been installed in many homes to allow people to, again voluntarily, reduce their usage and get rewarded for doing so.
“Technically, a general campaign about reducing energy would probably make no difference to our energy security. So, that would be a good reason not to do it.
“We’re also hesitant to tell people what they should do when we’re not a nanny-state Government. What we are prepared to do is talk to the big energy users and talk to consumers with smart technology about rewarding them for reducing energy at the peak times.”
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