Draft Petroleum (Transfer of Functions) Regulations 2016

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 General Committees

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Ms Ryan, it is always a delight to see you in the Chair. Some hon. Members from the Minister’s party have encouraged me to detain her in Committee for as long as is reasonably possible this morning. In respect of their wishes, I have searched back through the Petroleum Act 1998, section 3: licences to search and bore for and get petroleum, and section 4: licences for further provisions. I have gone to the Oil Taxation Act 1975, section 3: allowance of expenditure (other than expenditure on long-term assets and abortive exploration expenditure), and to schedule 2, which talks about the management and collection of petroleum revenue tax returns by participators. I am sad to say that I have not been able to find any cause to detain the Committee longer.

My party has agreed with the findings of Sir Ian Wood’s review. The OGA’s new powers and oversight to ensure that decommissioning is used to best advantage in the North sea seems to us entirely right. Decommissioning should not operate in the short-term interests of those involved, but in the longer-term interests of the co-operative use of the infrastructure. That is a point I wish to make particularly for the benefit of not only those who are involved in future production in more marginal fields over this coming period, but the future possible use of the North sea as one of the world’s finest repositories for carbon capture and storage.

I regret that the Government have abandoned their funding for the development of the CCS programme. I think that is a devastating shame. We have the finest repositories in the world and they are going to be there awaiting CCS technology. Although, in terms of our own emissions reduction capacity and our own climate commitments, CCS is not critical for our infrastructure in the immediate future, it could have been marketed across the world through the technology and skills that Britain could have exported. For that reason, I regret the loss of funding. However, it does not give me cause to detain the Committee longer or to press the matter to a vote.