Police are called in to control forecourts as NHS and care staff can’t fill up

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The government is putting the military on standby as part of further measures to address a supply chain crisis which has led fuel pumps to run dry amid panic-buying by motorists.

The move to mobilise the army comes after a widespread shortage of truck drivers, which has led to serious supply problems for retailers and restaurants in the past few months, has meant plentiful stocks of fuel have not reached filling stations.

A warning of fuel supply shortages at the end of last week has led to panic buying, with long lines of cars waiting for hours to fill up, and resulted in pumps in cities across Britain running dry. 

After a dizzying 24 hours of dithering over the use of soldiers to plug the HGV driver gap, ministers agreed to put the Army on standby. It is hoped that panic-buying will ease this week to reduce pressure on fuel supplies. But if the crisis does not abate, ministers will trigger ‘Operation Escalin’.

About 150 military tanker drivers were put into a state of readiness under the operation, sources said. Some of them will receive further training in the next few days to be able to deliver fuel if required.

The operation, originally conceived in case of a no-deal Brexit, could potentially see hundreds of troops brought in to help. 

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tonight announced that army tanker drivers were being put on standby. 

He tweeted: ‘Today we’re asking army tanker drivers to be ready to deploy. And extending licences for fuel transporters to keep on road. As joint statement by 10 fuel suppliers says, if everyone buys fuel as normal petrol stations will revert to normal service.’  

Cabinet Office minister Steve Barclay chaired cross-government talks on Monday afternoon to discuss the situation as industry leaders continued to insist there is ‘plenty’ of fuel at UK refineries and terminals.

Leading suppliers, including BP, Esso and Shell, said demand for petrol should return to normal levels in ‘the coming days’. 

‘As an industry we are working closely with the Government to help ensure fuel is available to be delivered to stations across the country,’ they said in a joint statement last night. 

The government had already announced plans to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers, suspend competition laws and entice former drivers back into the industry as part of measures to deal with the labour shortage.

It said it would now put a limited number of military tanker drivers on a state of readiness to be deployed if necessary.

‘While the fuel industry expects demand will return to its normal levels in the coming days, itâs right that we take this sensible, precautionary step,’ business minister Kwasi Kwarteng said in a statement late on Monday.

‘If required, the deployment of military personnel will provide the supply chain with additional capacity as a temporary measure to help ease pressures caused by spikes in localised demand for fuel.’

The army tanker drivers will receive specialised training before deploying to help deal with supply chain issues, the government said.

The demand for fuel has meant that 50% to 90% of pumps were dry in some areas of Britain, according The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents independent fuel retailers who account for 65% of all the 8,380 UK forecourts.

The fuel industry says there is no shortage, and the issue is transporting petrol and diesel to forecourts.

‘As many cars are now holding more fuel than usual, we expect that demand will return to its normal levels in the coming days, easing pressures on fuel station forecourts. We would encourage everyone to buy fuel as they usually would,’ said a joint statement from fuel firms.

However, hauliers, gas stations and retailers say there are no quick fixes as the shortfall of truck drivers – estimated to be around 100,000 – was so acute, and because transporting fuel demands additional training and licensing.

The government said it was also extending specific HGV (heavy good vehicle) licences, which allow drivers to transport fuel, for those whose permits were due to expire in the next three months to allow them to keep working without having to take refresher courses.

Transport Minister Grant Shapps said they were already seeing an easing of demand at gas stations as the public responded to the message not to buy fuel unnecessarily.

The fuel crisis has seen up to nine in ten forecourts run dry, leaving NHS staff including doctors and nurses as well as care workers without petrol and schools planning a return to online learning because teachers can’t fill up their cars. There are growing calls for critical workers to get priority access to forecourts this week. 

Police have now been called in to control forecourts, with officers pictured at a north London Esso garage directing traffic, with all approaches to the station blocked by a huge queue of cars. 

John Apter, the national chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said officers are having to go to petrol stations to make sure people are ‘behaving sensibly’. He said: ‘People are panic buying fuel and this is putting a strain on policing in a number of ways.

‘Police officers are having to attend petrol stations to ensure people are behaving sensibly. They also must get to and from their place of work, and this is being increasingly inhibited as they struggle to fuel vehicles.

‘The government needs to give urgent consideration as to how my colleagues and other emergency workers can get the fuel they need to travel to work and do their job.’

It came as Halfords revealed the sale of jerry cans went up 1,656 per cent over the weekend, and one driver was filmed filling water bottles with petrol. 

Gavin Rabbitt stopped at Shell garage in Cobham Services on the M25 yesterday and sat in disbelief as he watched a woman empty two 1.5litre water bottles and then fill them up with fuel – seemingly unaware the bottle could explode, or melt, because it is not a vessel to legally carry petrol. 

Mr Rabbitt, from Tonbridge, Kent, who filmed the woman seemingly filling up water bottles with petrol, said: ‘I thought ”I can’t believe the stupidity of this woman”. This is the kind of thing that causes the problem. People filling up things they shouldn’t be filling up and no one else can get the fuel because of other people’s stupidity. The queue was all the way down the slip road. We were queuing for about 20 to 30 minutes. She was all blasé and doing it right in front of me. It’s ludicrous.’ 

And it is proving so difficult to get fuel, thieves have been siphoning it from cars, sometimes drilling into the petrol tank, Shadrack Olaloko, from Birmingham, said: ‘What these guys did was they came and drained out all my fuel in the tank’. 

Britain’s biggest petrol retailers have said they expect the crisis to ease in the next three days because once people have a full tank, demand for fuel is likely to fall away by Thursday or Friday. And Downing Street again denied there is a shortage of fuel, saying there are ‘ample stocks in this country’.

But claims that the crisis will be over this week has been questioned by drivers. One said; ‘If there was a delivery driver shortage last week, causing some stations to run out, how will that be miraculously resolved by the middle of this week? Some garages around London were out of fuel even before panic buying kicked in’. Another wrote: ‘It’s hard to rebuild confidence again when this kind of thing starts. People will just keeping topping up their cars and never let them go below a quarter for a long time’. 

And as the Prime Minister considered emergency plans to halt the petrol panic, Environment Secretary George Eustice has said the Government has ‘no plans at the moment’ to use soldiers to drive petrol tankers amid continuing shortages at filling stations. He said: ‘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.’

The British Medical Association (BMA) has this afternoon called for healthcare staff and essential workers to be given priority to access fuel, warning that as pumps run dry ‘there is a real risk that NHS staff won’t be able to do their jobs’.  

Drivers queued for four hours or more in lines stretching for miles and some even slept in their cars outside petrol stations.  

Electrician Roland McKibbin, 31, from Beckenham, south-east London, said he would only be able to reach one of his jobs on Monday having been unable to fill up his tank, despite visiting four petrol stations.  He said: ‘So, basically, the panic-buying idiots have lost me income, and directly taken food off the table for my wife and five-year old son, because I can’t wire people’s houses from home, unfortunately. I wasted about 15 miles of fuel looking – in the end I had to turn back as I was on fumes.’ 

As the fuel crisis continues, it also emerged today: 

Some care workers, NHS staff and taxi drivers are unable to fill up at petrol stations, London mayor Sadiq Khan has said; Fears have been growing over the fuel crisis sparking school closures and care home food shortages;The Road Haulage Association wrote to Boris Johnson warning of ‘critical supply chains failing’ in June, but they claim their call for temporary worker visas was ‘ignored’;And EU lorry drivers union says: ‘We will not go back to England to help them get out of the s**t they created themselves’;Grant Shapps said he was sending SOS letters to one million HGV licence holders asking them to return to work;Experts warned panic buying ‘is going to get worse before it gets better’ as UK faces a ‘catastrophic situation’;In more rush hour misery for motorists, Insulate Britain today defied a court injunction to block the M25 for a sixth time this morning; 

Karenza Passmore, 55, from Langley Park in County Durham, is the director of the North East Religious Resources centre, an educational charity.

She said she was unable to drive to work on Monday, while the charity may be unable to move resources – such as books and artefacts – to schools and faith groups. ‘Yesterday I used 30 (miles) trying to find some diesel but there was no fuel,’ she said.

Colin Owens, who runs Oil 4 Wales petrol stations in Wales, has said panic buying is completely unnecessary as ‘refinery tanks are full’, adding that panic buying has seen sales reach five times the levels of last week.

Boris Johnson has said he could call in the Army to deliver petrol and diesel across Britain amid a crisis that has seen competition laws suspended to allow businesses such as Shell and BP to share drivers.

But his plan to bring in 5,000 foreign lorry drivers to deal with the shortage suffered a major blow after the head of an EU truck union declaring they ‘will not go to the UK for a short term visa to help UK out of the s**t they created themselves’. Edwin Atema, who represents drivers across the EU and Europe said: ‘Before the coronavirus crisis and Brexit this industry was sick already. Plagued by expectation, by irresponsible multinationals who drag down prices, which ended up with drivers voting with their feet and leaving the industry’. 

A lack of fuel has led to a mass return to working from home today, just weeks after the Government lifted most coronavirus-related legislation to get more people into the office. TomTom traffic data revealed that congestion is down today in all major cities compared to when the chaos began last week.

And petrol stations with a fresh delivery of fuel have already been accused of of hiking fuel prices to as high as £1.57 per litre – up from the national average of £1.35 last week –  and another 10p price rise could be on the way, experts have warned, as some garages sold out of fuel in an hour this morning.

Schools have said they will return to the online classrooms used in lockdown if teachers can’t get to work – with some parents also unable to drive – while many petrol stations are now prioritising NHS workers in special two-hour slots where they must show ID to fill up. The manager of a petrol station near Heathrow Airport said staff had been forced to close the toilets to stop customers waiting there for pumps to reopen.

One school in Surrey wrote to parents over the weekend saying: ‘The current petrol crisis could potentially disrupt school next week. The ability of staff and pupils to get to school may be compromised and there may also be issues with our food deliveries.  Clearly, we have no desire to go back online so soon after the challenges of the last couple of years but we cannot exclude the possibility that it may be necessary’.

One headteacher tweeted: ‘This is actually going to be a problem. I don’t have any fuel myself and all the stations in my area are out of diesel. Most of my teachers commute further than ten miles to work’. Desperate motorists have even started following fuel delivery drivers to petrol stations, earning the nickname ‘tanker w***ers’ from critics, as panic buying continues across the UK with fights even breaking out at the pumps. 

One Twitter user said: ‘My brother in law is a lorry driver and delivers fuel. He’s on the road now and there are people following him – literally tracking his every turn – in cars. He says it’s like end of days’. He added: ‘I worried it might be really scary for him, but he just thinks they’re all kn*bs’. 

Ministers will consider drafting in troops to deliver petrol and diesel later this week if panic-buying persists, sources said.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said designated petrol stations should be reserved for essential workers.

He said: ‘As the current reductions in fuel delivery affect petrol stations across the capital, it is essential that key workers are able to get fuel to travel to work and provide the services our city needs.

‘In the fuel crisis of September 2000, the government brought in rules designating specific filling stations for essential workers, enabling the capital to keep moving.

‘The Government must urgently look at taking the necessary steps putting such measures in place, so that those key workers who have to drive to work can do so.

‘We will continue to monitor developments closely and advise the Government on required actions.’

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for healthcare staff and essential workers to be given priority to access fuel, warning that as pumps run dry ‘there is a real risk that NHS staff won’t be able to do their jobs’.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of council at the BMA, said: ‘Emergency and essential workers rely on fuel both to travel to work and for their work itself – whether this is to get to hospitals, practices and other healthcare settings, or for ambulances to reach people in urgent need of care and GPs to visit very ill patients at home.

‘Everyone will have their own reasons for needing to fill up, but as pumps run dry there is a real risk that NHS staff won’t be able to do their jobs and provide vital services and care to people who urgently need it.

‘While the Government has said it is putting plans in place to alleviate the shortage of HGV drivers to transport fuel, the results of this won’t be immediate. Healthcare and essential workers must therefore be given priority access to fuel so they can continue their crucial work and guarantee care to patients.’ 

One worker has said people panic-buying have ‘directly taken food off the table’ of his wife and son, as many struggled to commute without any fuel.

Queues stretched out from petrol stations at the weekend as panic-buying added to fuel supply issues caused by a lack of HGV drivers.

A petrol station worker said the demand for fuel has been ‘unprecedented’ at his small local garage and that shop sales have ‘tanked’ following a weekend of panic-buying.

Yasser Ahmed, 37, who runs West Drayton service station with his father, said his four-pump station had gone through 30,000 litres of fuel – the amount it would usually sell in a whole week – in just two days.

‘That’s completely not normal,’ he said.

‘Yesterday we didn’t open up, we lost a whole day yesterday, today dad is in, only because we have a lot of regular customers from the local community who are going to work and want to grab their coffee first in the morning.

‘That’s the only reason we opened up. We’re not selling anything inside, our shop sales have tanked.

‘People are saying on social media that petrol station owners are doing really well and making a lot of money – we’re not. We make our money from shop sales, and they’re gone.’

Mr Ahmed said he had placed an order immediately on Friday afternoon but was still waiting on confirmation of another fuel delivery for Wednesday.

‘We’re a family-run business, just myself and my dad, so we’re going to have to work however we can,’ he told the PA news agency.

‘It’s like in the pandemic, we just did what we needed to do to get by.

‘Everyone is panic-buying through fear that it’s going to run out and, because of that, it actually has run out.’

Electrician Roland McKibbin, 31, from Beckenham, south-east London, said he would only be able to reach one of his jobs on Monday having been unable to fill up his tank, despite visiting four petrol stations.

‘I rely on fuel to travel to jobs – no fuel means I can’t drive, which means I can’t get to jobs with my tools,’ he told the PA news agency.

‘So, basically, the panic-buying idiots have lost me income, and directly taken food off the table for my wife and five-year old son, because I can’t wire people’s houses from home, unfortunately.

‘I wasted about 15 miles of fuel looking – in the end I had to turn back as I was on fumes.’

Mr McKibbin said being unable to travel would cost him ‘at least £200 for the day’ while he will have to cancel jobs on Tuesday if he cannot fill up before then.

‘We’ve been left at the short end of the stick along with ambulance staff etc,’ he said.

The Environment Secretary George Eustice said there were ‘no plans at the moment’ to use the Army to drive petrol tankers amid continuing shortages at filling stations, after Boris Johnson was thought to be considering sending in troops.

Karenza Passmore, 55, from Langley Park in County Durham, is the director of the North East Religious Resources centre, an educational charity.

She said she was unable to drive to work on Monday, while the charity may be unable to move resources – such as books and artefacts – to schools and faith groups.

‘Yesterday I used 30 (miles) trying to find some diesel but there was no fuel,’ she told PA.

‘The nearest garage to me is four miles so it’s a risk now, (chancing) my arm to see if the fuel stations have any in.

‘Today I was due to see a colleague in the office – (I’m) going to have to cancel and do it online, hoping things settle and I can fill up soon.

‘I don’t want to add to the hype – I am sure that things will settle as they did with loo rolls and food on shelves – but the lack of planning and infrastructure for a clearly foreseeable problem is so disappointing.’

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng announced on Sunday he was temporarily suspending competition laws to allow the industry to share information so it can target areas where fuel supply is running low.

The move came after the Prime Minister Mr Johnson said the Government was creating 5,000 three-month visas for foreign lorry drivers in an attempt to ease the pressure on hauliers which has been blamed over the problems.

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’.

Alireza Ghazal, 19, a student from Hayes in west London, said: ‘I have been on the search for fuel for three days now and it’s all been in vain.

‘I was really excited to go back into university and start my social life up again and attend lectures after a year of staying at home.

‘I have probably lost more fuel looking for fuel. This is a disgrace that a first world country is running into shortages like this.

‘I have had to ration my petrol to last as long as it can, but to be honest it’s most likely going to end before the end of today.’

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has agreed to implement a measure to temporarily exempt the oil industry from the Competition Act 1998, as part of a plan called the Downstream Oil Protocol, for the purpose of sharing information and optimising supply.

Officials said the measure will make it easier for industry to share information so that they can prioritise the delivery of fuel to the parts of the country and strategic locations that are most in need.   

Gordon Balmer, executive director of the Petrol Retailers Association, which represents 5,500 independent stations, told LBC some petrol brands are seeing between 50% and 90% of their sites running dry. 

He said: ‘We did a straw poll yesterday morning of a number of our members who have around 200 sites between them.

‘Fifty per cent of those we spoke to said their sites were dry and some actually said 90 per cent of their sites were dry, so it is on a company-by-company basis and almost on a brand-by-brand basis because some oil companies are still relatively okay in terms of deliveries.’

When asked about possible Government plans to grant temporary visas to get more HGV drivers, Mr Balmer said: ‘We are a fuel retailing trade association, not a logistics company, but I would have thought anything like that is going to help, but from what I hear maybe that’s not enough, so I know the Government are looking at other measures such as drafting in military drivers.

‘What we’re hoping is a lot of people have filled up over the weekend, a lot of people only fill up once a month, that might give us some respite to start to replenish stocks over the next few days.’

A suspension to competition law to assist with fuel supplies would be ‘very welcome’, Brian Madderson of the Petrol Retailers Association has said.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Madderson said that in Northern Ireland ‘there does not seem to be a problem at all with supply and retail outlets, so the problem is confined to the mainland’.

He said: ‘With the problem of dry sites, we’re really talking more about the concentrated urban areas than we are the rural areas at this stage’.

He said dry sites ‘are being restocked at the present time but the number of tankers that they’re receiving are below the number that they need to be properly restocked at their normal level of between 40% and 50%’.

A suspension in competition law, he said, ‘possibly allows the suppliers to put fuel into their competitors’ sites … and if so, the increased flexibility that that would give the supplying industry would be very welcome’.

He added: ‘It will be complicated.’ Asked if the move is a game-changer, he said: ‘No, it’s just one of the helps.’

Kevin Hughes, manager at Chaddesley fuel station in Kidderminster, told BBC Breakfast this morning that he had seen queues of at a least a quarter of a mile last week.

He said: ‘It all got very, very silly on Friday. We’ve had a very, very tough time over the past 18 months, but not seen anything like this at all.

‘Massive queues – there is no reason to panic buy. We have got plenty of fuel. Most of the customers have been very, very good, but trying to martial them and keep the road open has been interesting.

‘Nobody’s putting in £5 worth. It’s just a case of trying to get people parked up properly, moving along and organised and get them through as quickly as we can. The team in the shop have been absolutely flat out getting people through and that’s all we can do.

He added that the fuel station was prioritising NHS workers, saying: ‘We have done. Last Saturday evening we had an hour and a half when we stayed open extra and the uptake on that was absolutely brilliant.

‘The comments we’ve had on the Facebook page have been wonderful. Depending on how the situation goes, we’re going to assess if we need to do it. So we don’t know what’s going to happen today – it’s going to be interesting.’ 

Ministers are understood to be looking at what additional training military drivers with existing HGV licences would need to take to drive fuel tankers, which require additional safety qualifications. 

Mr Johnson is set to gather senior cabinet members on Monday to scrutinise ‘Operation Escalin’ after oil giant BP said that a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, the Guardian reports.

It will come following a weekend of chaos that saw an ambulance hit a car in a petrol queue and ministers suspending competition laws in a bid to beat back the crisis. 

And footage filmed in Bromley, Greater London, showed an ambulance being driven by paramedics bumping into the back of the car as paramedics tried to manoeuvre past a queue for a Shell petrol station which had spilled onto the road.  

The paramedics had to stop to exchange details with the driver of the damaged car and a different ambulance had to attend the emergency.   

Police also jumped ahead of queues of traffic at a Hackney petrol station to avoid running out of fuel. Officers said: ‘We had to jump the queue, our cars are empty and we can’t get to the depot in Romford to refill.’ 

A joint statement from energy and logistics companies including Shell, ExxonMobil and Wincanton said: ‘We are in regular contact with ministers and policy officials and it was reassuring to meet with the Business Secretary again on Sunday evening and discuss further action.’ It also reassured drivers there is ‘not a national shortage of fuel’. 

Kevin Hughes, manager at Chaddesley fuel station in Kidderminster, told BBC Breakfast this morning that he had seen queues of at a least a quarter of a mile last week.

He said: ‘It all got very, very silly on Friday. We’ve had a very, very tough time over the past 18 months, but not seen anything like this at all. Massive queues – there is no reason to panic buy. We have got plenty of fuel. Most of the customers have been very, very good, but trying to martial them and keep the road open has been interesting.

‘Nobody’s putting in £5 worth. It’s just a case of trying to get people parked up properly, moving along and organised and get them through as quickly as we can. The team in the shop have been absolutely flat out getting people through and that’s all we can do.

He added that the fuel station was prioritising NHS workers, saying: ‘We have done. Last Saturday evening we had an hour and a half when we stayed open extra and the uptake on that was absolutely brilliant. The comments we’ve had on the Facebook page have been wonderful. Depending on how the situation goes, we’re going to assess if we need to do it. So we don’t know what’s going to happen today – it’s going to be interesting.’

Government officials have given the green light for plans to bring in 5,000 foreign lorry drivers to deal with the shortage – with the UK said to be 100,000 HGV drivers short, according to the Road Haulage Association.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps took aim at the group, accusing them of sparking the panic buying crisis.

But he also warned that the lorry driver shortage could go on ‘for years’, despite the Government doubling the number of tests that can be carried out in a bid to quickly boost driver numbers.    

Oil giant BP also said that nearly a third of their petrol stations in Britain have run out of fuel despite continued pleas for motorists to ‘continue as normal’. 

BP, which operates 1,200 sites in Britain, said in a statement: ‘With the intense demand seen over the past two days, we estimate that around 30 per cent of sites in this network do not currently have either of the main grades of fuel.’

Mr Kwarteng said: ‘We have long-standing contingency plans in place to work with industry so that fuel supplies can be maintained and deliveries can still be made in the event of a serious disruption. While there has always been and continues to be plenty of fuel at refineries and terminals, we are aware that there have been some issues with supply chains.

‘This is why we will enact the Downstream Oil Protocol to ensure industry can share vital information and work together more effectively to ensure disruption is minimised. We thank HGV drivers and all forecourt staff for their tireless work during this period.’  

 

A fight also broke out between moped drivers at a petrol station in north London and was captured and shared online as motorists queued to fill up. 

The footage, shared on Twitter, showed one driver running and jump-kicking another at a BP garage in Haverstock Hill, near Camden as motorists pack out petrol stations across the country. 

The two men were already seemingly being separated before the physical fight began, with one trying to use his crash helmet to attack the other. 

It comes after a four-man fight broke out at an Esso garage in Chichester, West Sussex yesterday. 

More petrol stations are being forced to close after running out of fuel as Britons continue to panic buy amid fears of a shortage.  

One motorist said: ‘I have been driving around Croydon, Bromley, Westerham, Oxted and Godstone for two hours and passed over twenty garages.

‘Eighteen were completely shut and two had queues so long, you couldn’t even join them.’ 

London Ambulance Service told MailOnline: ‘We can confirm that one of our ambulances was involved in a collision with another vehicle on Bromley Hill at approximately 6.55pm on 25 September while on a blue light call to a patient.

‘As a result of the incident, the ambulance was out of service for a short amount of time and a different ambulance crew attended the patient.’

It comes as Mr Shapps claimed the fuel crisis has been ‘manufactured’ as he accused haulage firms of sparking panic buying after they warned of HGV driver shortages. 

The Transport Secretary said ‘there is plenty of fuel’ to go around as he urged motorists to be ‘sensible’ and to ‘fill up when you normally would’. 

He said the rush to forecourts which has seen lengthy queues at stations across the country ‘will come to an end’ because soon ‘everyone’s cars will be more or less filled up’. 

Mr Shapps said the chaos is a ‘manufactured situation’ in comments likely to spark fury among retailers and transport bosses.

But he said that it would take a ‘considerable amount of time’ to fix the issue, which he said had been going on for five years and was also a problem in EU countries such as Poland. 

Speaking on Times Radio’s T&G show, Mr Shapps said: ‘It is certainly going to take a considerable amount of time to alleviate this long term shortage of drivers which has gone on for five years.

‘If you talk to the boss of Logistics UK, he came into the job five years ago and the first problem on his desk was a shortage of drivers. It’s never changed. So that’s going to take time to unwind.’

Asked whether it would be months or years before the crisis was resolved, Mr Shapps said: ‘It will take months to years to fully unwind. But the short term issue can actually resolve itself immediately, because we don’t actually have a shortage (of fuel)…

‘I can’t give you an exact day and hour because it does depend on millions of people’s behaviour when it comes to the petrol pumps as well.’ 

It came as experts warned panic buying ‘is going to get worse before it gets better’ as the nation faces a ‘catastrophic situation’. 

There is an estimated shortfall of 90,000 HGV drivers in the UK freight sector. 

The Government has announced plans to offer 5,000 three-month visas to foreign lorry drivers in a short term bid to ease pressure on supply chains. 

The announcement came after scenes of lengthy queues at petrol stations as the shortage of fuel tanker drivers forced some retailers to shut their pumps and ration sales. 

The British Retail Consortium and the British Chambers of Commerce criticised the scope of the measures set out by the Government which were seen by some as a step back from Boris Johnson’s stated ambition to create a high-wage, high-skilled post-Brexit economy.

It also came as turkey farmers reported a surge in orders as families scramble to save Christmas dinner amid fears of a poultry shortage. 

There have been unprecedented numbers of orders for turkey, with most high-end farms reporting soaring demand compared to this time last year.

This panic buying surge has seen some farms receive more than five times the number of orders as in 2020. Several farms are reporting 250 per cent surges compared to figures from this time last year. 

Meanwhile the boss of the UK’s Traditional Farm Fresh Turkey Association (TFTA) blamed Brexit for Britain’s supply chain crisis. 

The recent closure of fertiliser factories, due to a spike in natural gas prices, has also led to disruption in food production.

The closure of the plants, one of which has since reopened as part of a Government deal, has led to a decrease in food-grade carbon dioxide – used to stun animals for slaughter, as well as in packing meat, dairy and salads. 

Fears over a possible shortage has now led to a surge in ordering good quality turkeys to prepare for Christmas, according to the Traditional FarmFresh Turkey Association (TFTA) which represents the high-end turkey market.

To cater for the increase in demand in turkeys, many farmers have had to start taking orders earlier than usual with one Cornish farm having customers push to order as early as August.

Supermarket Tesco has already warned that a shortage of delivery drivers, which is causing empty shelves, could lead to panic buying across Britain in the lead up to Christmas.

Kate Martin, a Cornish turkey farmer and chair of the Traditional FarmFresh Turkey Association (TFTA) said: ‘Last year we saw record demand, particularly for smaller turkeys, due to an increase in smaller gatherings and a desire to make Christmas lunch extra special, despite the restrictions.

‘This year, many of our members have increased their flocks significantly to help meet growing demand for quality turkeys.

‘While there will be more Golden Standard turkeys available this year, the orders we are currently seeing surpass anything we have ever seen before.’

It comes as Derbyshire-based EVCL Chill Ltd called in administrators, with around 400 jobs said to be at risk.

Administrators PwC said acute driver shortages had added to the company’s challenges.

EVCL Chill, which is based in Alfreston, has sites across the UK including Daventry, Rochdale, Crick and Penrith.

It employed more than 1,000 staff in warehousing and HGV driving roles. Around 650 employees had been transferred ‘to key customers’, administrators said.

Around 400 staff are said to be ‘at risk’ and will be addressed about the company’s future on Monday, saw PwC.

The company turned over £167million in the period up to December 2020.

But administrators say the firm had lost key customers in recent years. The company’s issues had been compounded by the UK’s HGV driver shortage, according to PwC.

Meanwhile, community nursing and care workers are also being impacted by the crisis, according to union chiefs.

They say members have warned that staff may struggle to get into work or to their clients on Monday due to being unable to fuel their vehicles.

Gary Smith, GMB General Secretary, took aim at the Government over its handling. 

He told MailOnline:’There is no plan in Number 10, only panic – and it’s piling pressure on workers and services at every level.

‘The run on the forecourts is unnecessarily affecting frontline workers in our ambulance and home care services and the rising cost of energy will cause distress for the lowest paid households trying to make ends meet.

‘We need to ensure emergency and community services are properly resourced as a priority and that employers allow more flexibility on working from home to reduce the strain on this avoidable crisis.’ 

Panic at the pumps! How truckers ground Britain to a halt in September 2000 by blockading refineries in fuel duty stand-off with Tony Blair… sparking petrol queues, closure of schools and empty shelves

The escalating fuel and energy crisis which is now gripping Britain is already leading to panic buying at pumps and the prospect of fuel rationing.

The current crisis is caused in part by an HGV driver shortage, rather than a lack of fuel itself.

But, for just over a week in September 2000, a committed group of truckers and farmers angry at rising fuel prices brought Britain to its knees.

By blockading refineries, they caused petrol stations to run dry, leading to empty shelves in supermarkets, delays to mail deliveries, schools being shut and the army being put on standby.

The situation was made worse by panic buying, which led to a week’s worth of fuel being sold in three days. Truckers also led ‘go-slow’ protests on the roads which led to huge queues of traffic, including in Central London.

The then Prime Minister Tony Blair’s popularity plummeted as he took a tough line by refusing to cut fuel duty, which he had hiked less than two years earlier.

Then, after soldiers were ordered to prepare to drive 80 tankers through blockades and the NHS was put on an emergency footing, the protests came to an end and supplies slowly returned to normal.

Despite the protesters’ apparent climbdown, their main aim was achieved less than a month later, when Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in that year’s budget that fuel duty would be frozen and vehicle excise duty effectively cut.

The crisis was precipitated by the price of crude oil rising in early September 2000 to £23 a barrel.

Even though Britain’s prices at the pumps were already the highest in Europe, Downing Street refused to cut fuel duty to lessen the burden on drivers.

Then, French truckers staged their own blockades, causing more than 14,000 of France’s 17,000 petrol stations to close.

On September 8, British lorry drivers decided to follow the lead of their counterparts on the Continent.

Farmer Brynle Williams – who went on to become a Conservative member of the Welsh Assembly – led a convoy of trucks which blocked Shell’s Stanlow oil refinery near Ellesmere Port, in Cheshire.

There were also similar scenes at rival Texaco’s refinery in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.

It took less than 24 hours for the effects of the blockade to filter through to forecourts, which began to run dry. By September 12, as many as 3,000 petrol stations – of 13,500 nationally – were dry.

On September 11, BP said that 600 of its 1,500 outlets had run dry or were soon going to. Esso said more than 350 of its 1,600 had run out, while Texaco said one in three of its outlets were set to end up empty.

The country’s largest inland oil terminal, Kingsbury in North Warwickshire, was closed after protesters blockaded its access gates.

In Southampton, Esso’s Fawley Oil Refinery was blocked, leading to shortages in Poole, Portsmouth and New Milton.

Other depots to be blocked included those run by Texaco and Total at Avonmouth Docks in Bristol.

And, as was to be expected, panicking motorists then took the chance to fill up where they could, making the situation even worse.

To try to deter panic buyers, one petrol station in Derby began charging £1.99 a litre for regular unleaded and £2.50 for super-unleaded.

Owner Paul Gizzonio defended himself, saying: ‘I haven’t done this to rip anyone off. I’m a businessman who has to make money and I won’t make anything when fuel runs out.’

With delivery trucks also unable to fill up, the shortages soon spread to supermarkets and other stores.

Worried shoppers also flocked to stock up on essential goods, leading to empty shelves and heaping further pressure on the stretched supply chains.

Ambulance services were also forced to cancel all non-emergency journeys to and from hospitals to save fuel.

The Royal Mail also warned that they did not have enough fuel to keep their delivery trucks going, while more than 70 schools closed and even rubbish collections were hit.

Protesters manning barricades at fuel depots were also persuading tanker drivers not to cross their picket lines as they sought to force the Government to cut fuel duty and lower prices at the pumps.

At Scotland’s Grangemouth depot, which normally supplied 90 per cent of the nation’s fuel via 300 truckloads a day, only 13 tankers made it through the blockaders’ picket line on September 13.

At a Downing Street press conference, Mr Blair said: ‘No government, indeed no country can retain credibility in its democratic process or its economic policy-making were it to give in to such protests. Real damage is being done to real people.’

Two days earlier, on September 11, a special meeting of the Privy Council presided over by the Queen at Balmoral to give the Government emergency powers to break the blockades, including the use of the Army and orders to police to break up the pickets.

In a sign of the depth feeling, one farmer who had already been crippled by the mad cow disease crisis joined a group called Farmers For Action which blockaded the refinery at Ellesmere Port in Liverpool.

In a sign of the depth of feeling, one haulier who had parked his lorry on a busy A-road in Newcastle, bringing chaos to the transport artery, said: ‘People thought we would never have scenes in this country like the ones in France.

‘But people are fed up. Maybe Tony Blair will take notice when a major road comes to a standstill in the middle of a busy Friday. It is a big enough issue to decide the next election.

‘I don’t want to cause mayhem, but today I decided the time had come. It is not just truckers, people with private cars are sick of paying £50 to fill up their tanks.’

On September 13, Blair met with oil company executives who pledged to get supplies moving again – after they had been accused to collaborating with protesters.

However, the situation looked as though it would get worse still when a lorry demonstration descended on London, causing huge traffic jams.

Then, on September 14, after army drivers had been put on standby to break through the blockade, Mr Williams said the blockade at Stanlow was going to end.

Demonstrators at other sites then quickly followed and around 20 per cent of the network was back up and running within 24 hours, with the rest following in the days that followed. 

Whilst subsequent protests did cause problems in 2005 and again in 2007, it was the crisis in 2000 which was the most damaging for the nation and the Blair government.

In his budget in 2000, Chancellor Mr Brown announced changes to ease the burden on motorists.

Duty on ultra-low sulphur petrol was cut, whilst the tax on other grades of fuel was frozen for two years.

More vehicles were also put into the lowest vehicle excise duty (VED) band, a change which translated into a cut of 50 per cent for most lorries.

The Government also forced foreign lorries to pay a tax to use British roads.