Planned winter blackouts across the United Kingdom are “extremely unlikely”, Nadhim Zahawi has said.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster played down reports that Britain could face rolling power cuts.
It comes after the National Grid warned that households could lose power for up to three hours at a time if gas supplies run extremely low.
The company said it was an “unlikely” scenario but added that supply interruptions were a possibility if the energy crisis escalated.
“It’s extremely unlikely,” he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday presented by Trevor Phillips.
“We’ve got a couple of things that we’ve done that help us deal with winter.
“Of course war on our continent is the cause of us being very focused on making sure we have the resilience in place over winter.“
Zahawi said the country had the second largest liquified natural gas processing infrastructure in Europe and that the government wanted to “go further”.
“Now, what the National Grid is saying is the extremely unlikely scenario where there’s issues in Europe with the interconnectors and a cold snap.
“So it is extremely unlikely, but it’s only right that we plan for every scenario. We have a buffer, the same buffer as last year.
“And so I’m confident that come Christmas, come the cold weather, we will continue to be in that resilient place.“
He said the National Grid and Ofgem had acommunication programme to advise people on energy use.
It comes as the government resists calls to encourage people to reduce their overall energy use. Business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg signed off on a £15 million public information campaign only for the plan to be ruled out by prime minister Liz Truss, according to The Times.
And on Friday, climate minister Graham Stuart said “we’re not a nanny-state government”.
Asked about the campaign, Zahawi added: “The question you ask is about spending £14 million on a campaign - that I think is the wrong thing because actually, if you go on gov.uk now you’ll see if you search what tips there are for you to be able to conserve more energy, use energy wisely, the National Grid and Ofgem and actually a number of the energy providers are using the direct communication with households to be able to say here are some measures that you can take.”
He added: “What we’re not doing is spending £14 million on a government campaign.“
Labour shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband said it was “entirely sensible” to give the public factual information about how they can save money on energy bills.
“Blocking it because of ideological dogma is another failure piled on 12 years of Tory failed energy policy for which the British people are paying the price,” he added.