BORIS Johnson has said the situation on the filling station forecourts is “stabilising” as he has been accused by Keir Starmer of reducing the UK to "chaos" over the fuel supply crisis.
As motorists face long queues for petrol and stations have been running dry, the Prime Minister said he understood the frustration felt by drivers as they struggled to fill up.
However, he said that the indications from the industry were that the situation was beginning to improve with supplies returning to normal levels.
“On the forecourts, the situation is stabilising and people should be confident and just go about their business in the normal way,” he said in a pooled interview with broadcasters.
His appeal came as Starmer accused the UK Government of reducing the country to “chaos” through its failure to deal with the fuel crisis.
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The Labour leader said the haulage industry was “beyond frustrated” at the lack of a clear plan by ministers to alleviate the problems caused by the shortage of tanker drivers.
“The Government has reduced the country to chaos as we track from crisis to crisis. The Government is not gripping this,” he told BBC News.
“This problem was predictable and predicted and the Government has absolutely failed to plan.”
But with the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) reporting “early signs” that the crisis was coming to an end, the Prime Minister expressed confidence the worst was over.
Johnson said the Government was putting in place measures to ensure the entire supply chain could cope in the run-up to Christmas.
“I want to say first of all how much I sympathise with people who have been worried about their journeys, worried about whether they will be able to use their cars in the normal way,” he said.
“We are now starting to see the situation improve. We are hearing from industry that supplies are coming back onto the forecourts in the normal way.
“What we want to do is to make sure we have the preparations necessary to get through to Christmas and beyond, not just in the supply of our petrol stations but all parts of our supply chain.”
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However, Starmer (below) said there were doubts among the industry that the UK Government’s plan to issue 5000 three-month visas to foreign lorry drivers to make up for the shortage of truckers would work.
The Labour leader said there was a “strong view” that they would need to be for at least six months if they were to tempt sufficient numbers to come to the UK.
“The Prime Minister should take that action today, prioritise key workers and start issuing enough visas and for long enough,” he said.
“The strong view this morning was that three months visas won’t work, they’ve got to be six months visas.
“But this problem was predictable and predicted and the Government has absolutely failed to plan.”
Starmer resisted blaming Brexit directly for the shortage of HGV drivers but accepted it was partly a consequence of leaving the European Union.
Speaking to Channel 5 News, he said: “I wouldn’t say that Brexit is to blame. What I would say is that it was inevitable as we exited the EU that we needed a plan to deal with drivers.
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“That is obvious whether you voted Remain or voted Leave, and we took that decision years ago.
“And here we are with a shortage of drivers which was completely predictable and predicted – and the Government hasn’t got a plan.”
Speaking later to Sky News, Starmer said: “What is the sole cause of this problem? The Government has known for some time that there are consequences of us leaving the EU, one of which is lorry drivers.”
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