Times Radio<\/a>, Butler said ministers should start encouraging people to work from home as a way to tackle the coming energy crisis, with a \u201ccumulative shortage\u201d expected over the next few months.<\/p>\n\u201cSome countries, I think particularly in Asia where the crisis has hit earliest, they\u2019re taking an extra day a week at home. People are being encouraged to work at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think you have to test now whether there\u2019s a willingness. And as I read the behavioural science, people do respond. They don\u2019t all do it perfectly, but they respond if other people are responding. And if there\u2019s a lead, which is seen as part of a rational policy, I think we\u2019re getting to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether the government should be leading on encouraging employees to work from home, he replied: \u201cYes, I think that that would be a perfectly sensible measure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butler said the crisis was likely to get worse before it got better, even if a deal was struck to reopen the strait.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve now had six weeks during which none of the tankers have come through Hormuz,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose tankers take weeks to get to their destination, and we\u2019re now running out of the tankers that set off before the war began. So there\u2019s now going to be a real gap in supply.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think the boss of Shell said it a couple of weeks ago, and I think he was exactly right, that the real crisis for Britain and for Europe will come at the end of April and in early May, when the real shortage will translate into both a physical shortage and a sharp rise in prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve yet seen the full impact on prices of this loss of supply.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI think there\u2019s been a degree of complacency and a belief that Mr Trump would always come back into line and there would be a deal, and then everything would be OK. Now you see, I think there are 230, 240 ships trapped in the Gulf and none now entering. So this is going to be a cumulative shortage over the next few months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butler also urged the government to quickly publish an update plan showing how ministers intended to deal with potential fuel shortages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m waiting for the government to publish what they\u2019re supposed to publish in these circumstances, which is a national emergency fuel plan. They haven\u2019t done that. Other countries are doing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey hate the word rationing, and I think you\u2019re right, there shouldn\u2019t be panic buying. But I think the way to avoid panic buying<\/a> is to lay out a plan of what\u2019s going to be done.\u201d<\/p>\nHowever, the prime minister\u2019s spokesman rejected Butler\u2019s call and said the government had already set out its position on petrol.<\/p>\n
He said fuel production and imports were continuing \u201cas usual\u201d and that the UK had a \u201cdiverse and resilient\u201d supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministers should encourage people to work from home to save fuel and tackle the coming energy crisis, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-606706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}