David Ruffley MP has this week warned that residents and businesses across Suffolk could soon be facing power cuts as, for the first time since the 1970s, the supply of electricity will fail to meet demand at peak times.

Because of EU regulations many power stations will have to shut or will be reaching the end of their useful lives and the Government has failed to ensure that replacements will be online in time. The small print of Whitehall documents reveal that Ministers are allowing for power of cuts of 3,000 megawatt hours per year by 2017.

David said:

'This revelation is simply staggering. Gordon Brown and his Whitehall bureaucrats have tried to sneak out the news that power cuts of 3,000 megawatt hours per year could be commonplace by 2017. This is the equivalent of 670,000 people, an area nearly the size of Suffolk, being without power for a day.

'These power cuts will hit residents and businesses in our area hard. The blackouts are likely to strike at peak times, in the early evening during the winter months, hitting much larger numbers when the need for electricity is greatest.

'It is deeply troubling that local people and hard working entrepreneurs in our town will face blackouts because this Government has failed to produce a coherent energy policy over the last decade.

'If elected an incoming Conservative government will act quickly to tackle Gordon Brown's energy crisis. We will increase generating capacity, improve energy efficiency in local homes and adopt the latest green technology to make Britain's energy policy a matter of national security.'