Councils are reconsidering the multi-million pound contracts they have with the state-owned Russian gas company Gazprom in light of Russia’s Ukraine invasion.
Public sector data firm Tussell calculated that the UK’s local authorities spent more than £29.2m of contracts with the energy company between 2016 and 2021.
Suffolk CC topped the list of councils with Gazprom contracts by spending around £4.65m but announced yesterday it was ending its contract in response to the ‘immoral and utterly reprehensible decision to invade Ukraine’.
Manchester City Council came in second with £4.2m and Salford City Council was third with around £3.8m.
Most of local government expenditure with Gazprom came from local authorities in the north-west (£13m) followed by the east of England (£6m) and London (£5m).
A Government spokesperson said: ‘We will work closely with councils and other public bodies to ensure they are able to comply with the financial and investment restrictions on Russia and will engage with them on what support they need to do this.
‘The UK is in no way dependent on Russian gas supply, and our highly diverse sources of gas supply and a diverse electricity mix ensures that households, businesses and heavy industry get the energy they need.’