Zahawi: We must plan for blackouts ... even though they’re unlikely
MINISTERS are right to plan for blackouts even though they are ‘extremely unlikely’, Nadhim Zahawi said yesterday.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also defended the scrapping of a £14million advertising campaign on saving energy – and pointed families to free advice on the Government’s own website.
But he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: ‘It’s only right that we plan for every scenario. In the extremely unlikely event of several things having to align in a bad way... I am confident the [energy] resilience is there, that people can enjoy their Christmas.’
Plans for a publicity campaign to help families save energy, signed off by Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg last week, were blocked by Liz Truss on ‘ideological’ grounds.
Climate minister Graham Stuart confirmed on Friday that the information campaign would not go ahead because ‘we’re not a nanny-state government’.
There was an immediate backlash from Tory MPs who argued ‘grown-up’ governments should help homes and businesses use less energy. Guy Opperman MP said: ‘The Government must act. This is not nanny statism.’ Mr Zahawi said tips on how to save energy were available on the gov.uk website and many power companies were already giving customers advice directly.
Blackouts would only arise, he said, if a number of different factors converged. This might include cold, still days limiting the amount of electricity generated by wind power, combined with issues with electricity imports from Europe.
The Government is considering a plan to pay homes with smart meters £10 a day to avoid using electricity at peak times, for example by running washing machines and dishwashers at night.
■ A prospective Tory peer was mocked yesterday after he joked that women needed central heating more than ‘hotblooded’ men like him.
Graham Evans, a Tory MP between 2010 and 2017, told the BBC’s Politics NorthWest programme: ‘Personally I’m a hotblooded male. Females in my house like to have the heating on.’
Labour parliamentary candidate Oliver Ryan, who was also on the programme, put his head in his hands in response and called the comments ‘oldfashioned misogyny’.