Jackdaw Gas Field

Debate between Baroness Curran and Lord Howell of Guildford

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the Statement includes a proposal that there should be a North Sea energy wealth fund, which will put £2 billion into further development of some kind. I am proud of the way in which, under both parties, we developed the North Sea in an amazing way and at an amazing speed in the last century. I give full credit to Tony Benn, who got it going, although his methods were slightly different from those of some of us on the other side.

We now have the North Sea wealth fund, Great British Energy, the North Sea Transition Authority and the GB nuclear authority. That is before we come to any of the decommissioning authorities or other authorities developing the energy transition. Is this not overegging the pudding? It seems to me that we are creating more carbon emissions with all this bureaucracy than will be saved by anything else. Could the Minister assure us that someone has an eye on keeping this bureaucracy under control? We should let the basic forces of good regulation and innovation lead to more jobs for this country and even more jobs for the supply chains all over the world. Can she reassure us this is being kept under watch and not running out of control?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that very interesting question, and I pay tribute to him and recognise his great experience in this field over—being respectful—many decades. He raises a very interesting point about the carbon emissions of bureaucracy; that is quite an interesting question I could ask in the department. Challenging bureaucracy, looking at costs, driving down duplication and always making sure that you are driven by outcomes are very good principles of government. I take the point that he raises very seriously, and it is something that I and the department will keep in the forefront of our minds. When we are creating the necessary infrastructure to implement our decision-making, it is vital that we do not bureaucratise or duplicate. We should have a carbon emissions assessment of that too. In the spirit of the partnership that he began with, I think we can say that the commitment to the North Sea remains because it will play a great part in our energy mix for decades to come.