‘No plans’ for Army to deliver petrol to stations

The government has “no plans at the moment” to use the Army to drive petrol tankers amid continuing shortages at filling stations, the environment secretary has said.

George Eustice said there was not a shortage of fuel and called on motorists to stop “panic buying” petrol and return to their normal pattern of purchasing.

His comments came amid reports Boris Johnson was considering sending in troops to deliver fuel to petrol stations.

In a pooled clip for broadcasters, Mr Eustice said: “We are bringing Ministry of Defence (MoD) trainers in to accelerate some of the HGV training to clear a backlog of people who want to carry out those tests, and there’s definitely a role there for the MoD.

“In terms of other things, we’ve no plans at the moment to bring in the Army to actually do the driving, but we always have a Civil Contingencies section within the Army on standby – but we’re not jumping to that necessarily at the moment.”

Industry leaders have warned drafting in the Army will not on its own end the shortages on the forecourts.

The Petrol Retailers Association chairman Brian Madderson confirmed some training had been taking place “in the background” for military personnel.

But he warned it was not an “absolute panacea” and that there was no “single lever” the government and the industry could pull to resolve the crisis.

A statement by Shell, ExxonMobile and other industry bodies again insisted there was no “national shortage of fuel” and that the pressures on supply were the result of “temporary spikes in customer demand”.