Truss in row over decision to close gas store

Tory leadership hopeful under fire from Labour

LIZ TRUSS has been accused of signing off the closure of the UK’s biggest gas storage facility as Ministers now rush to reopen the facility before winter.

The Rough natural gas storage facility, off the coast of East Yorkshire, is set to reopen within weeks, amid concerns over the country’s gas reserves in future winters, The Yorkshire Post understands.

Labour have said that the closure would have been one of Ms Truss’s first acts as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2017, after cost and safety concerns were raised.

Allies of Ms Truss last night stressed that she would not have been involved in key discussions involving the closure prior to her appointment, with the decision coming only days after she stepped into the role.

Labour have said that the move showed the Government’s “blatant disregard” for protecting the energy supply of the UK.

“We are facing an energy crisis because of 12 years of Conservative failure on energy security – on renewables, on storage, on insulation and on regulating the market,” Ed Miliband, Labour’s Shadow Climate Change Secretary, told The Yorkshire Post.

“Liz Truss’s involvement in shutting down the Rough gas storage facility and plummeting the UK into close to zero storage stocks shows the blatant disregard from this government to protect our energy supply and keep bills down.

“Labour will not stand by and let people suffer any more.”

A Labour source said that Ms Truss “received briefings and sat around the table in meetings giving the final green light to major decisions on matters of vital national infrastructure”.

“It’s a struggle to believe she was not sighted or an active participant in the closure which was a result of her government’s refusal to step in,” the source said.

“Either that, or she wasn’t doing her job properly along with the rest of this Tory government.”

In 2017 the facility was closed by Centrica after it said it was unsafe and uneconomical, while the Government was accused of not agreeing to pay for its costly repairs.

The facility is able to hold enough gas to meet the UK’s demand for winter for around 10 days when full.

Since its closure the UK has relied on a “just in time” approach to gas supply, and has exported, rather than stored it, meaning the UK is more exposed to harsh winter conditions which require more heating of the country’s homes.

Since then the UK has developed a “glut” of natural gas, according to a Whitehall source.

“We’re turning away ships in hordes,” they said.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary and a backer of Ms Truss in the leadership campaign, has now asked for it to be reopened.

A few weeks ago The Yorkshire Post included a letter from five Yorkshire Conservative MPs backing Liz Truss, while also including an item from Jayne Dowle with an opposing view. The cogent letter from Anne Houlton published on August 10 reminded me of this.

Jayne Dowle made her views crystal clear, her points made in an acidic, scalpel sharp, excoriation of where Truss stands, on how to help with the huge increases in energy costs coming, tax cuts, no handouts, Remainer now ardent Brexiteer, Northern Ireland Protocol, actions as Foreign Secretary and hostility to the European Union. I voted Leave without overt anti-Europeanism. I was not impressed by the Truss evasions when recently questioned by Kay Burley on Sky on her plans, dropped, for regional pay boards.

Truss could not get herself to admit that she had blundered. I would like to hear from Liz Truss on how tax cuts will help the single mother already pushed to feed her family and keep warm in winter and unable to get dental treatment as private care beyond her, the care worker on living wage, the pensioners barely making ends meet. If you are the CEO of Yorkshire Water, or British Gas, it is a different matter.