A former adviser says the government should encourage people to work from home to tackle energy shortages in the wake of the war in Iran.
Professor Nick Butler, once an adviser to Gordon Brown when he was prime minister and former vice-president for strategy and policy at oil giant BP, said it would be “perfectly sensible” for ministers to tell workers to stay at home, warning that the price of diesel could still go a “good deal” north of £2 per litre.
US-Israeli military action in Iran since February has seen the price of oil reach record levels, with prices up more than 60 per cent so far this year as the blockade of the vital shipping route Strait of Hormuz continues.
“Some countries, I think particularly in Asia, where the crisis has hit earliest, they’re taking an extra day a week at home,” he told Times Radio.
“People are being encouraged to work at home and I think you have to test now whether there’s a willingness.
“And as I read the behavioural science, people do respond. They don’t all do it perfectly, but they respond if other people are responding.”
Asked if the government should issue recommendations to work from home, Prof Butler said: “Yes, I think that that would be a perfectly sensible measure.”
Prof Butler also said that the price of diesel could surge higher still, warning that the worst is yet to come.
He said: “The real crisis for Britain and for Europe will come at the end of April and in early May, when the real shortage will translate into both a physical shortage and a sharp rise in prices.
“I don’t think we’ve yet seen the full impact on prices of this loss of supply.”
Asked if the price of diesel could climb higher than £2 per litre, he said: “It could go a good deal north of that.
“The jet fuel prices doubled, and I think that could go further north as well.
“I think there’s been a degree of complacency and a belief that Mr (Donald) Trump would always come back into line and there would be a deal, and then everything would be OK.”
