UK faces fuel shortage - minister

Forecasters predict temperatures are due to plummet

British industry could suffer fuel shortages if Met Office predictions of a severely cold winter are correct, the government has said.

"There is no doubt we would be under stress," government minister Lord Davies told peers.

He was answering a question from former Coal Board head Lord Ezra, who asked how the UK could cope if temperatures fell to levels last seen in 1963.

Such a severe winter "only happens twice a century", Lord Davies added.

"We guarantee in all circumstances supplies to domestic consumers," he said.

And industrial consumers would "adapt to these changing circumstances as they have always done in the past".

Forecasters are predicting that Britain could be facing one of the coldest winters in a decade.

We have had a pattern of very, very mild winters over the last few years so this will come as a shock Ewen McCallum Met Office

Ewen McCallum, chief meteorologist at the Met Office, has said it is important to give an "amber alert" to government, fuel firms, business and the health sector.

Mr McCallum told BBC Radio 4 Today's programme: the aim was for "forward planning" to "make sure that government departments and business utilities have got their act together".

Mr McCallum said the Met office prediction of a cold winter was 66% likely to be proved correct.

He said the calculations were based on the "North Atlantic oscillation" - a measure of sea temperatures which normally correlate with weather patterns.

Present readings suggest there will be much less westerly wind, which brings milder air from the Atlantic.

He said: "We have had a pattern of very, very mild winters over the last few years so this will come as a shock."