Calls for key workers to be prioritised for fuel – but who should be front of the queue?
The government is facing calls to prioritise essential workers as some petrol supplies run dry amid impacts of a shortage of lorry drivers.
Long queues were reported overnight and some petrol brands are seeing as many as 90% of their sites running dry, according to the Petrol Retailers Association.
Union Unison said that key workers should not be left stranded or forced to queue for hours for fuel, and called on the government to “designate fuel stations for the sole use of key workers”.
“Essential staff must be able to get to their jobs so they can continue to provide the services so many rely upon”, said the union’s general secretary Christina McAnea.
“Ambulance crews, nurses, care workers, teaching assistants, police staff and other key workers mustn’t be left stranded or forced to queue for hours simply to get to a pump.
“The Government could solve this problem now by using emergency powers to designate fuel stations for the sole use of key workers.”
But what difficulties are essential workers experiencing?
Healthcare workers
Healthcare and essential workers should be given priority access to fuel, the British Medical Association has said.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said healthcare workers should be prioritised to guarantee care to patients. He said “there is a real risk that NHS staff won’t be able to do their jobs”.
“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,” Dr Nagpaul added.
“Healthcare and essential workers must therefore be given priority access to fuel so they can continue their crucial work and guarantee care to patients.”
There have been calls to prioritise emergency service vehicles
Earlier, a campaign group called EveryDoctor, which has 1,700 members, had reported that some healthcare workers were unable to get to work and said the government should clarify its plan “to ensure that all NHS staff can reach their workplaces safely during this fuel crisis”.
Get in touch: If you’re struggling to get fuel we want to hear from you. Send us a photo of queues or closed petrol stations if you can do so legally and safely, along with details of how it’s affecting you, your name and location. Email news@skynews.com with the subject line ‘blog’.
Homecare workers
The Homecare Association is calling for urgent prioritisation of homecare and other essential workers on garage forecourts.
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No plans for army drivers to ease fuel crisis
Jane Townson, chief executive of the Homecare Association, said: “There is only patchy prioritisation of essential workers.
“In previous fuel strikes, local authorities have been able to arrange for scarce fuel to be prioritised for essential users.
“There is a question whether this needs authority from central government, under civil contingencies legislation, to address the current problem. We call for this issue to be resolved urgently, as homecare workers need a fast solution so they can get to people who rely on their vital help.”
“The lack of communication from government is not helping.”
What about other workers?
Meat industry
The petrol pumps crisis has presented another problem for the beleaguered meat industry as key staff, such as meat inspectors and vets, are starting to have trouble getting to different sites.
It’s another headache for the sector which has already been hit by a shortage of CO2 – used for stunning animals before slaughter and vacuum packing – and an exodus of foreign workers at abattoirs.
The crisis has presented another problem for the beleaguered meat industry
The British Meat Processors Association said the latest problem had so far not caused any plants to shut completely but it was “monitoring the unfolding situation very carefully”.
A spokesperson for the group said: “Apart from the obvious logistics problems with getting deliveries of product between plants and into supermarkets, which many manufacturers are facing, the meat industry has additional but less obvious vulnerabilities to the fuel shortage.
“There are a number of critical workers whose presence is relied on to keep meat factories running. Meat inspectors are the people who physically stamp every carcass to denote that it is fit for human consumption so it can enter the food chain. Vets must be present to inspect operations from an animal welfare perspective and also sign off critical documentation to certify standards are being met.
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Emergency measures to stop panic buying fuel
“The people who perform these roles often work across multiple meat plants over a wide geographic area. If either of these roles are absent due to their inability to get petrol and travel to the sites, production instantly slows down in direct proportion to the time they’re not able to work.
“We have heard reports from a couple of companies already that they’re missing some of these key workers. So far it has not caused any plants to completely shut but we are monitoring the unfolding situation very carefully.”
Teachers
Teachers could be among key workers prioritised
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “The last thing we need is further disruption to education given the experience of the last 18 months.
“Schools are still grappling with the ongoing challenges caused by COVID-19, and so we hope any further disruption caused by petrol supply problems can be avoided.”
Pharmacies
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society said that pharmacies are still getting deliveries of medicines and told people to collect their prescriptions as normal.
Pharmacies are still getting deliveries
Professor Claire Anderson, president of the society, said: “As normal, pharmacists are working with patients to ensure they get the medicines they need. We’re not aware that the problems with fuel supplies are stopping patients getting their medicines.
“If you have any concerns then please speak to your local pharmacist and their team, who will be able to help and reassure you.”
Taxis and cars
Travelhire Group, which runs Brunel and Green Tomato cars, warned of “a sizeable portion of delays to bookings” in the coming days and warned customers to allocate time for delays.
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The organisation said: “In order to control fuel consumption and minimise the risk of vehicles becoming stranded, there are some long-distance bookings which we will not be able to honour. We will contact customers individually about any such bookings.
“We are encouraging customers to share bookings where practical (up to 3 passengers in one car). Where people carriers are booked, there may be times we need to send two cars instead.”
Edmund King, AA president, said: “Millions of drivers changed their refuelling habits this weekend, but once a tank is full it can’t be topped up. This short-term increase in demand should slow and allow forecourts time to restock. We anticipate things will return to normal within the coming days.
“Drivers also need to be careful because this weekend we have seen a dramatic rise in misfuelling (putting in the wrong fuel) compared to last weekend. This in turn unnecessarily reduces the fuel available as the whole tank has to be drained before refilling with the correct fuel.”
Eight men have been arrested by the Metropolitan Police in two unconnected but “significant” terrorism investigations.
In one operation on Saturday, counter-terror officers arrested five men – four of whom are Iranian nationals – as they swooped in on various locations around the country. All are in police custody.
The Met said the arrests related to a “suspected plot to target a specific premises”.
In an update shortly after midnight, the force said: “Officers have been in contact with the affected site to make them aware and provide relevant advice and support, but for operational reasons, we are not able to provide further information at this time.”
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “Counter-terrorism policing, supported by police and colleagues from across the country, have conducted arrests in two really significant operations, both of which have been designed to keep the public safe from threats.
“There are several hundred officers and staff working on this investigation, and we will work very hard to ensure we understand the threats to the wider public.”
He refused to say if the plot was related to Israel, but described it as “certainly significant” and said “it is unusual for us to conduct this scale of activity”.
He also asked the public to “avoid speculation and some of the things that are being posted online”.
MI5 director general Ken McCallum said in October that the intelligence agency had responded to 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots since 2022. He warned of the risk of an “increase or broadening of Iranian state aggression in the UK”.
Read more: Terror arrests came in context of raised warnings about Iran
Children ‘petrified’ by armed police
Rochdale resident Kyle Warren, who witnessed one of the arrests at a neighbouring house, said his children had been playing in the garden when they came running into the house, saying a man in a mask had told them to go inside.
“Obviously, I was a bit worried,” Mr Warren told Sky News’ Lisa Dowd, and so he went into the garden to investigate.
“As we’ve come out, we just heard a massive bang, seen loads of police everywhere with guns, shouting at us to get inside the house.”
Kyle Warren said his children were ‘petrified’
From upstairs in his house, he then heard “loads of shouting in the house” and saw a man being pulled out of the back of the house, “dragged down the side entry and thrown into all the bushes and then handcuffed”.
There were about 20 to 30 officers with guns, he believes.
“It’s just shocking, really. You don’t expect it on your doorstep.”
His daughters were “petrified… I don’t think they’ve ever seen a gun, so to see 20 masked men with guns running round was quite scary for them”.
Mr Warren, who only moved into his house a year ago, said he had “never really seen anyone going in or out” of the house and actually thought it was empty.
One suspect was arrested in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester. Pic: Sarah Cash
One suspect was arrested in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester. Pic: Sarah Cash
Arrests and searches around the country
The Met added officers were carrying out searches at a number of addresses in the Greater Manchester, London and Swindon areas in connection with the investigation.
It said those detained were:
• A 29-year-old man arrested in the Swindon area
• A 46-year-old man arrested in west London
• A 29-year-old man arrested in the Stockport area
• A 40-year-old man arrested in the Rochdale area
• A man whose age was not confirmed arrested in the Manchester area.
A 29-year-old man was arrested in the Stockport area
Terror arrests in separate investigation
Police also arrested three further Iranian nationals in London on Saturday as part of another, unrelated counter-terror investigation.
The suspects were detained under section 27 of the National Security Act 2023, which allows police to arrest those suspected of being “involved in foreign power threat activity”.
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Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “These were two major operations that reflect some of the biggest counter state threat and counter terrorism operations that we have seen in recent years.
“This reflects the complexity of the kinds of challenges to our national security that we continue to face.”
Earlier, she thanked police and security services in a statement, and called the incidents “serious events that demonstrate the ongoing requirement to adapt our response to national security threats”.
Last year, the government placed the whole of the Iranian state – including its intelligence services – on the enhanced tier of the new foreign influence registration scheme.
It means anyone asked by Iran to carry out actions for the state must declare it, or face prison time.
UK
Terror arrests came in context of raised warnings about Iran, with ongoing chaos in its own backyard
These are two separate and unrelated investigations by counter-terror officers.
But the common thread is nationality – seven out of the eight people arrested are Iranian.
And that comes in the context of increased warnings from government and the security services about Iranian activity on British soil.
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Counter terror officers raid property
Last year, the director general of MI5, Ken McCallum, said his organisation and police had responded to 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents since January 2022.
He linked that increase to the ongoing situation in Iran’s own backyard.
“As events unfold in the Middle East, we will give our fullest attention to the risk of an increase in – or a broadening of – Iranian state aggression in the UK,” he said.
The implication is that even as Iran grapples with a rapidly changing situation in its own region, having seen its proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, decimated and itself coming under Israeli attack, it may seek avenues further abroad.
The government reiterated this warning only a few weeks ago, with security minister Dan Jarvis addressing parliament.
“The threat from Iran sits in a wider context of the growing, diversifying and evolving threat that the UK faces from malign activity by a number of states,” Jarvis said.
“The threat from states has become increasingly interconnected in nature, blurring the lines between: domestic and international; online and offline; and states and their proxies.
“Turning specifically to Iran, the regime has become increasingly emboldened, asserting itself more aggressively to advance their objectives and undermine ours.”
Read more:
Anybody working for Iran in UK must register or face jail, government announces
As part of that address, Jarvis highlighted the National Security Act 2023, which “criminalises assisting a foreign intelligence service”, among other things.
So it was notable that this was the act used in one of this weekend’s investigations.
The suspects were detained under section 27 of the same act, which allows police to arrest those suspected of being “involved in foreign power threat activity”.
Those powers are apparently being put to use.
UK
Pictured: Boy killed in Gateshead industrial estate fire – 14 children arrested on suspicion of manslaughter
Tributes have been paid to 14-year-old Layton Carr who died in a fire at an industrial estate.
Eleven boys and three girls, aged between 11 and 14 years, have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after the incident in Gateshead on Friday. They remain in police custody.
Police were alerted to a fire at Fairfield industrial park in the Bill Quay area
Firefighters raced to Fairfield industrial park in the Bill Quay area shortly after 8pm, putting out the blaze a short time later.
Police then issued an appeal for a missing boy, Layton Carr, who was believed to be in the area at the time.
In a statement, the force said that “sadly, following searches, a body believed to be that of 14-year-old Layton Carr was located deceased inside the building”.
Layton’s next of kin have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers, police added.
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Teenager dies in industrial estate fire
A fundraising page on GoFundMe has been set up to help Layton’s mother pay for funeral costs.
Organiser Stephanie Simpson said: “The last thing Georgia needs to stress trying to pay for a funeral for her Boy Any donations will help thank you.”
One tribute in a Facebook post read: “Can’t believe I’m writing this my nephew RIP Layton 💔 forever 14 you’ll be a massive miss, thinking of my sister and 2 beautiful nieces right now.”
Another added: “My boy ❤️ my baby cousin, my Layton. Nothing will ever come close to the pain I feel right now. Forever 14. I’ll miss you sausage.”
A third said: “Rest in peace big lad such a beautiful soul taken far to soon my thoughts are with you Gee stay strong girl hear for u always.”
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Detective Chief Inspector Louise Jenkins, of Northumbria Police, also said: “This is an extremely tragic incident where a boy has sadly lost his life.”
She added that the force’s “thoughts are with Layton’s family as they begin to attempt to process the loss of their loved one”.
They are working to establish “the full circumstances surrounding the incident” and officers will be in the area to “offer reassurance to the public”, she added.
A cordon remains in place at the site while police carry out enquiries.
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