UK Government plans for possible food shortages amid Iran conflict

According to leaked documents, measures are being considered to address potential disruption to supplies of key goods, including carbon dioxide (CO2), which could affect the storage of packaged meats, salads, and drinks production should fighting continue into the summer.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the public should know that contingency planning is underway but emphasised that there is currently no immediate cause for concern.

Mr Kyle told Times Radio: “It is difficult for me, because, of course, these leaks are very unhelpful.

“But when people do read it, they need to be reassured that we are doing this kind of planning, and we are doing this kind of scenario planning.

“Bear in mind that back in Covid, Boris Johnson missed five Cobra meetings in the lead up to it.

“I can tell you, because I’m in these meetings, the Prime Minister has been there since the very start, and he is going through personally and driving deep dives into lots of areas of resilience throughout our economy.”

The Government has said that the Iran conflict is not expected to lead to critical shortages, though there may be a reduced choice of goods on supermarket shelves in a “reasonable worst-case scenario” should fighting continue unabated.

Mr Kyle said carbon dioxide supplies are “not a concern” for the UK at this stage.

He told Sky News: “If any of these things change, I will be up front with the public about it in advance so that we can prepare.

“But right now, people should go on as they are, enjoying beer, enjoying their meats, enjoying all the salads.

“But also there are critical uses for CO2: MRI scanning, for example, water purification; it’s involved in our nuclear industry, our civil nuclear power industry, some defensive uses for it as well.

“There’s lots of needs for CO2, so these are the reasons why I took it so seriously way back to six months ago, not just in the last few weeks.”

Mr Kyle said he had mothballed a CO2-producing plant in Teesside shortly after becoming Business Secretary in order to prevent it shutting down completely.

Following the outbreak of war, the Government provided funding to restart the Ensus bioethanol plant, which produces CO2 as a by-product, to boost supplies.

Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy said the supermarket was in “constant contact” with the Government about supply chain risks.

He told reporters: “We are in constant contact with the Government for their scenario planning and we completely support their efforts.

“At this time, we haven’t seen any issues and are in very strong shape.

“We constantly talk to our suppliers and none of our suppliers have raised any issues.”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting also addressed concerns about essential supplies, telling LBC he was “confident” that NHS supplies would remain resilient.

However, he said contingency plans were in place to prioritise ambulances should diesel shortages materialise.

A Government spokesperson said: “Reasonable worst-case scenarios are a planning tool used by experts and are not a prediction of future events.”

Meanwhile, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has expanded plans to cut electricity bills for thousands of UK manufacturing firms.

An existing scheme to cut electricity bills by up to 25 per cent for more than 7,000 businesses is being expanded to help 10,000 firms.

However, the GMB union said members in gas-intensive industries, the ceramics sector and other manufacturing companies were “sickened at the lack of support” after being “shamefully ignored by the Government in this announcement”.

Conservative shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho criticised the policy, saying: “just 0.2% of businesses will benefit from this”.