Its members first agreed a Memorandum of Understanding, which committed all concerned to work together to ensure continuity of oil supplies. The arrangements include plans to direct fuel supplies to a limited number of designated filling stations and to give priority to essential users. We have upgraded arrangements to ensure that the local authorities and other priority users are better prepared for any future disruption. There has of course been a lot of debate as to whether intimidation of drivers took place. Many of those involved in the protests were intent on acting lawfully and peacefully, and did so.
Peaceful protest is an important right in any properly functioning democracy.
It is a right which I regard as one of my first duties to defend, as do the police. But the behaviour of some of the protestors did create a climate in which the drivers and their managers judged that it was unsafe to allow normal operations to continue. Along with Ministerial colleagues, I have spoken to a large number of the tanker drivers involved. Those I met told me of a real sense of fear that they felt about driving in the face of threats of intimidation and physical attack. I am placing in the Library a detailed log of 180 incidents of intimidation recorded by the oil companies, amended only to avoid identifying publicly the drivers involved.