Gas Crisis: Weather Forecasters bring Minister Malcolm Wicks a worrying Christmas Present

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 24th Dec 2005

John Hemming - "The government....are probably too busy stuffing themselves with turkey and Christmas pudding."

Weather forecasters are all forecasting a Christmas full of worry for the Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks MP, according to the Independent Energy Scrutiny Panel.

"Although we are unlikely to see weather as cold as -20C as is being forecast on the continent, the various forecasters are coming together to forecast snow for Tuesday/Wednesday. The big question for gas supplies is whether the snow stays for a week or longer.The UK Gas Supply system can probably cope with a couple of days of snow over Christmas as Christmas Week industrial consumption is particularly low. However, if the snow stays around into early January we can expect to see the system showing signs of strain.", said John Hemming MP, Chairman of the Independent Energy Scrutiny Panel and Liberal Democrats MP

John Hemming went on to say "Mr Wicks should be particularly worried about an Easterly with high pressure over Scandinavia and the Continent and lower in Great Britain. This could be good news for people wishing to sledge as long as they don't mind intermittent electricity blackouts."

"Gas has been taken out of storage unnecessarily. The National Grid have admitted that the supply system cannot cope with particularly cold weather. Our imports from Belgium are still running at particularly low levels. What are the government doing? - writing to Peter Mandelson!"

"Peter Mandelson cannot solve our gas problems this winter. The government need to be taking action through Ofgem to ensure that stored gas is used properly to prevent a Gas Emergency - amongst other things."

"It is possible that we will see a 1946/7 energy crisis although this, as usual, depends upon the weather. The government could have acted to prevent and reduce the severity of such an emergency. They still can act to ameliorate the situation, but they are probably too busy stuffing themselves with turkey and Christmas pudding to do anything sensible."

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