Jackdaw Gasfield

Alison Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I am tempted to say that it is certainly not a question for me, but I will answer the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. To be really clear, we came into Government with a judgment by the Court of Session that quashed the decisions, which required us then to put in place a process that considered the scope 3 emissions as part of a consenting regime. We had to design that process, consult on it with industry, get to a place where it was a practical process and then consider the applications. We have done that, and we have done it as quickly as we possibly could.

[Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

I welcome this decision. Can the Minister elaborate on why this pragmatic decision does not impact on the Government’s target to meet net zero by 2050?

[Michael Shanks]

The pathway to net zero by 2050 has to accommodate the fact that we will require oil and gas, one way or another, while we are in that transition. The choices open to the Government are to continue extraction from the North sea, which we will do with existing fuels and existing consented fields, or to import from other places. We are obviously importing from Norway, which has generally cleaner imports than anywhere else, but we also rely on LNG imports, which have a higher carbon intensity. The decision therefore involves a balancing act on how we deal with the requirement for oil and gas from different places, and the Secretary of State’s decision has been made after weighing up all the evidence on the fact that we are able to make this consenting decision within the boundaries of our legally set carbon budgets.