Energy Security
Debate between Bill Esterson and Angus MacDonald(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Select Committee has taken evidence on much of what is in the Gracious Speech, and a big part of this debate has been about the threats that we face as a result of the second fossil fuel crisis in five years. I remember the first in 1973: as a six-year-old, candles on the table were fun, but it was not much fun for most of the country. We have repeated that experience multiple times since.
We have heard one piece of evidence again and again in the Committee: to address the challenge of the current fossil fuel crisis, the Government must bring down the cost of electricity, to enable the transition away from our dependence on oil and gas.
Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)
To support the hon. Gentleman’s argument about the price of electricity, renewable energy is largely generated in Scotland, north Wales and south-west England. We have the highest level of fuel poverty, we have no mains gas, and the suffering caused to those rural areas is remarkable. Until that is improved, we are not in a position to move to an electricity-based economy.
Bill Esterson
The Government were supportive of heating oil in the recently announced measures precisely for some of the reasons that the hon. Member sets out. We have to address this threat, and we have to transition for reasons of energy security, cost and bringing bills down. Anybody going to the pump now or looking at what their bills are likely to be—I think Martin Lewis was today predicting the latest increase in the price cap—can see what is coming for domestic and business consumers.
Ukraine has learned about energy security the hard way, from the Russian attacks on its oil and gas installations, and it has shown us all. We have seen the same in the middle east with the war with Iran. Decentralising and moving away from dependence on oil and gas is key to protecting our energy generation.
The economic arguments are strong. The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), was talking about growth earlier; I ask her just to look at what the Office for Budget Responsibility is saying. The OBR makes the point that the costs of not addressing climate change are significantly more than the costs of making the transition. The Climate Change Committee predicts that, if we do not act, we will see a 7% fall in GDP by 2050. If we really want to be scared, we should listen to the actuaries: they know a thing or two about this, and they predict that global GDP will fall by 50% between 2070 and 2090, with catastrophic consequences across the world, unless we take the action that we need to take. We have to act.
The North sea is a super-mature basin, with a fraction left of what was there to start with. We were in a hurry to extract from the North sea. Peak North sea extraction was 1999, with 4.5 million barrels of oil a day. By 2023, after 13 of the Conservatives’ 14 years in office, that had fallen to 1.23 million barrels a day. That is a quarter of its peak production, and it will halve again by 2030. As NESO says, new licences will not make a material difference to capacity or production. Jackdaw, if it is given consent, would provide only 2% of UK demand. Rosebank would account for only 7% of production by 2030 levels. Those fields would not stop the decline, but only slow it.