Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Dave Doogan

2nd reading
Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s ambitions on the energy charter treaty. It is about time that the Government got off the fence on the issue and made a decision.

On job security, let us be clear that this Government care for oil and gas workers in Scotland every bit as much as they cared for the miners and the manufacturing workers in Scotland who were put to the sword in the 1980s, every bit as much as they care for our service personnel living in squalor, every bit as much as they care about the Post Office staff thrown into the privatisation mincer, and every bit as much as they care for junior doctors in England.

[Alexander Stafford]

On my previous intervention, I refer the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on my Falkland Islands trip paid for by the Falkland Islands Government.

The hon. Gentleman talks about the miners. In Rother Valley we were hit hard by the closure of the mines, which is why we need a transition. Keeping the new licences going will make the transition slightly longer and keep more people in work. Surely it is a good thing to diminish the negative impact that net zero will sometimes have on certain people.

[Dave Doogan]

The premise of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is that by delaying things, and maximising oil and gas production, we somehow maintain this link. We could just as easily deliver the same thing by accelerating the delivery of renewable energy and the infrastructure to transmit it to where it is needed. That would have the added benefit of introducing lower bills for consumers and industry, and making sure that we are not reliant on petrostates from far away with questionable regimes. I am looking through the right end of the telescope, whereas the hon. Gentleman and his Government are looking through the wrong end.

In short, the Tories could not give a flying fig for any worker on these islands—as long as their share price remains healthy, to hang with the rest of us. If the question is “How do we protect and transition oil and gas jobs into renewable energy production?”, the answer is definitely not to overstimulate unlimited offshore petroleum licensing. According to industry data, 441,000 jobs were supported by the oil and gas sector in 2013, but that number has already fallen to 215,000—so we are talking about 200,000 fewer jobs in 2022. The Government have issued approximately 400 new drilling licences, in five separate licensing rounds, in that period. The claim that there is a direct and proportionate relationship between the amount of licences issued and the amount of jobs sustained is entirely spurious.