the times | Tuesday September 15 2020 1GM 39
Business
BP has joined calls to bring forward a
ban on sales of new petrol and diesel
cars in Britain. The London-listed oil
major said that the ban “can, and
should, be brought in sooner than
2040”, which is the present target.
The government held a consultation
this year on proposals to change that
deadlione to 2035 or sooner and is pre-
paring to publish its decision.
“Whether that is 2035, 2032 or 2030,
we are up for it — and, importantly, up
for the measures and supporting
policies to boost electrification and
hydrogen in transport that would make
it possible,” Bernard Looney, BP’s chief
executive, said.
BP operates about 7,000 electric
vehicle charging points in the UK and
has said that it plans to install more
than 70,000 globally by 2030 in its
green strategy. Last week it struck a
deal with Uber to support its drivers
switching to electric cars.
The Times has called for the petrol
and diesel car sales ban to be brought
forward to 2030 as part of its “Clean Air
for All” campaign, while the Commit-
tee on Climate Change, the govern-
ment’s official adviser, has said that it
should be brought forward to 2032.
Mr Looney’s comments echo the
position of Royal Dutch Shell, BP’s
larger FTSE 100 rival, which has backed
a phasing out of conventional vehicle
sales by 2030 in Britain. Sinead Lynch,
Shell’s UK chairwoman, said in July
that the company believed that “the
right policy and incentives could allow
the UK to achieve [the ban] as soon as
2030”.
Mr Looney was speaking at the
opening of “BP week”, a three-day
event in which the company aims to
flesh out its new green strategy and to
win over investors sceptical that it candeliver promised returns from renew-
able energy.
BP is one of the world’s biggest oil
companies, with profits of $3.5 billion
last year. Mr Looney, 50, took the top
job in February and swiftly set a goal of
eliminating the carbon footprint of the
oil and gas it produces to “net zero” by
2050.
He is implementing a radical over-
haul of the company to achieve the
target and to respond to the collapse in
oil prices that was triggered by the
coronavirus pandemic. BP fell to aGoing for a pint is safe,
says Wetherspoons boss
Dominic Walsh
Staff at Wetherspoons wear masks to
help to prevent the spread of Covid-19ALAMYThe boss of JD Wetherspoon has
warned of the dangers of demonising
pubs for propagating the spread of
Covid-19, insisting that their role has
been “widely misunderstood”.
Tim Martin, founder and chairman
of the national pubs chain, criticised
Britain’s “colossally expensive ‘big
brother’ approach, based on exhorta-
tion, lockdowns, bewilderingly fre-
quent changes of direction and other
heavy-handed initiatives”.
Mr Martin, who favours Sweden’s
approach “based on trusting people”,
said that if pubs were closed or were
restricted so much that they became
unprofitable, the safety measures
maintained by staff would be lost, “leav-
ing the public to socialise at home or
elsewhere, in unsupervised circum-
stances”.
He pointed to media reports last
Friday suggesting that “Britons have
promised to run riot” over the weekend,
although trade had been very quiet,
with the Wetherspoon chain’s sales
22.5 per cent down on the same Satur-
day last year.
Wetherspoons, founded by Mr
Martin in 1979, sells cheap ales, break-
fasts, lunches and dinners. It had 44
pubs in 1992 at its flotation and today
has 875 in the UK and Ireland, with
43,000 staff.
Mr Martin, 65, said that while it was
“clearly possible for Covid-19 infections
to take place in pubs, the evidence
indicates that the risk is low, provided
social distancing and hygiene rules are
followed, and common sense is used”.
The chain, which has spent £15 mil-
lion on hygiene and social distancing
measures, said that in the ten weeks
since July 4, when pubs were allowed to
reopen, its 861 pubs that were trading
had about 32 million customer visits.the group said that it
hoped to re-employ
people once it got the
go ahead to reopen its
late-night bars from
the government.
It noted a “potential
need to repurpose
dancefloors and to
seat customers in a
socially distanced
fashion with an
absence of live music
and dancing”, but
admitted that this
would “fundamentally
change the business
model”. Overall,
trading in the
period from July 4
to September 6 had
been better than
expected, it said,
with total revenues
reaching 77 per
cent of the same
period last year. Its
golf sites were at
86 per cent while
the pier itself was
78 per cent.
Some locals in
Brighton have
expressed
concerns over the
crowds gatheringThe company that owns
Brighton’s famous
Palace Pier is chaired by
Luke Johnson, leftT
B
P
Lon the grade II listed
pier, although the
group insisted that
“extensive measures”
had been put into
place to meet social
distancing rules.
Shares of Brighton
Pier rose 3p, or 9.8 per
cent, to 33½p. The
business is chaired by
Luke Johnson, the
serial investor.BP joins chorus calling for early
ban on new petrol and diesel cars
Emily Gosden Energy Editor record quarterly loss last month and
halved its dividend.
Under BP’s strategy, revealed last
month, it will increase investment in
green energy tenfold to $5 billion by
2030 and will develop 50 gigawatts of
renewable power capacity by 2030 —
more than the entire renewable gener-
ation capacity of the UK.
Mr Looney insisted that the
renewables targets were “realistic and
achievable”, because the market was
expected to “grow and grow dramati-
cally”. Its 50-gigawatt target was only
between 1 per cent and 4 per cent of the
total capacity it envisaged being devel-
oped globally over the period, he said.
Mr Looney insisted that it could de-
liver returns of 8 per cent to 10 per cent
or more in renewables by using its
project management and trading expe-
rience to boost returns on offer.
BP also has said that its oil and gas
output will fall by 40 per cent by 2030.
Mr Looney said that this was the right
figure to enable growth in cashflow and
returns, allowing it to focus only on the
most profitable oil projects, while being
compatible with its net zero target. Dis-
missing talk of a “fire sale” of oil and
gasfields, he said: “We are in no rush to
sell our hydrocarbon assets.”
Shares in BP fell by 5p, or 1.9 per cent,
to 257½p last night.
BP operates 7,000 UK electric vehicle charging points and plans 70,000 globally
Aldi extends
online trial
around UK
Tom Ball
Aldi is to run trials of a click-and-collect
grocery service in Britain as it looks to
expand its online offering.
The trial, for staff at one of the
German discounter’s stores in the
Midlands, is expected to be introduced
around the country in the next few
weeks.
Aldi, which has 894 stores and is the
UK’s fifth-largest supermarket group,
has grown rapidly in recent years, put-
ting pressure on its more established
competitors through its low-price
model. However, until now its online
presence has been limited to non-food
items and alcohol, which it delivers.
Click-and-collect, which allows
shoppers to order items online before
picking them up at a store, has become
increasingly popular during the pan-
demic. The popularity of online shop-
ping has helped the “Big Four” of Tesco,
Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons to
grow more rapidly than their discount-
er rivals over the course of lockdown.
Since the start of the pandemic, online
grocery shopping doubled its share of
the market, with a 13.5 per cent of all
grocery sales ordered online.
Aldi has not revealed how much the
service will cost. Asda charges £4 for
orders under £25. Sainsbury’s charges
the same for orders under £40.There had been 66 positive tests for cor-
onavirus among its 41,564 employees
during that period, with 811 pubs
reporting no positive tests. It said that
most of the cases had been mild or
asymptomatic and thast 28 of the 66
staff affected had returned to work
after self-isolating.
Mr Martin said it was clear that pubs
were not dangerous places to be, and
added: “There have been more positive
cases at one farm in Hereford than at all
Wetherspoon pubs, and over four times
as many at one sandwich-making
facility in Northampton.”
He quoted Johan Giesecke, the
Swedish epidemiologist, as saying there
was strong scientific evidence that
handwashing and the social distancing
practised by most pubs was effective.
Shares of JD Wetherspoon, which
shored up its finances in April with a
£141 million share placing, fell 12½p, or
1.3 per cent, to 914p.