Transport Secretary Grant Shapps refused to rule out bringing in the Army to drive fuel tankers.
Asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show whether the Government planned to bring in Army drivers, he said: “We will do whatever is required.
“The Army are going to at the moment make sure we are testing HGV drivers, that’s where the bottleneck is.”
His comments come after the Government announced a temporary visa scheme that will see 5,000 HGV drivers and 5,500 poultry workers allowed to take up employment in the UK until Christmas Eve, in a bid to keep supermarket shelves stocked with turkeys and tackle delivery difficulties at petrol stations.
The intervention came amid scenes of lengthy queues at petrol stations after a shortage of fuel tanker drivers forced some retailers to shut their pumps and ration sales.
The minister asked the public to “do their part” in only refilling their cars when needed, calling current forecourt queues “an unnecessary situation”.
He also said if motorists only fill up their cars with fuel when needed, then there would be no need for the type of queues currently being seen at petrol pumps.
Speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme, the Cabinet minister said: “I think the important thing to know is that within the country, at the six refineries and 47 storage facilities, there is plenty of fuel, there is no shortage of fuel within the country.
“So the most important thing is actually that if people carry on as they normally would and fill up their cars when they normally would, then you won’t have queues and you won’t have shortages at the pump either.
“It is not like we don’t have fuel in the country, we do need to just ensure people are filling up when they need to fill up rather than thinking, ‘I better go and fill up now just in case I need it next week or the week after’.”
Asked whether the Government had ignored warnings for months about an upcoming shortage from the food and drink industry, Mr Shapps told Sky’s Trevor Phillips: “Not true – we have already doubled the capacity so it’s not true that nothing has been done.
“Let’s not pretend this is a UK-specific problem, it’s not. In Europe, for example in Poland, the shortage is 123,000 drivers, so there isn’t just one simple new point to axe off, there isn’t one simple solution to this, but we have, despite having had shortages, managed to ensure that petrol was still getting to petrol stations, food getting to the shops.
“I’m afraid there has been some pretty irresponsible briefing out by one of the road haulage associations, which has helped to spark a crisis, and that’s very, very unhelpful, it’s counterproductive.
“I know that they’re desperate to have more European drivers undercutting British salaries, I know that’s been their ask all along.
“We actually think that it’s important that this country can train people, that people can do a proper day’s work, that they’re paid properly for that work, and that the long-term solution cannot be undercutting British salaries and having a constant vicious cycle of not being able to train people here and employ them on decent salaries.”
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