Jackdaw Gasfield

Debate between Michael Shanks and Stella Creasy

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

We have heard loud and clear that the standing charge is the most frustrating part of the bill for people, because it is not driven by the individual choices they make about energy use but by a fixed price on the bill. The challenge with gas in particular is that we want people to use less, but there is little incentive to do that if the standing charge remains the same. I do not pretend it will be easy: the standing charge still has costs that have to be paid for and the gas network still has to be funded, but the Prime Minister has committed to working through how we can make the standing charge fairer and encourage people to make decarbonisation choices for affordability reasons. That is important for all of us and, crucially, it will bring down people’s bills.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will know that the climate science is clear that opening any new North sea oil and gasfields is incompatible with achieving our Paris climate agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. He will know that Jackdaw alone is worth 35 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, and Rosebank a further 250 million tonnes. What can he say to my constituents in Walthamstow who are still clearing up after the wildfires that burned down their homes and damaged their houses, and are now terrified about flooding from El Niño, about how this decision, our work on reducing emissions and the fund that he has mentioned will help to protect their future?

[Michael Shanks]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. On her last point, we are absolutely seized of the fact that the wildfires and the impact that heatwaves have had on people’s lives is evidence enough, if anyone ever needed it—I know she certainly does not because she has been a champion on this issue for a long time—that we have to take firm action on tackling climate change. That requires us to design a pathway to get to net zero that recognises the fact that we will need oil and gas as part of that transition, and that there are lower emissions coming out of the North sea than otherwise, but balancing that against significant investment, which must be made as quickly as possible, in renewables, nuclear and other technologies that help us get off the fossil fuels on which we are currently dependent. That is the only long-term pathway to energy security and to tackling the climate crisis, and we are doing everything we can to get there as quickly as possible.

North Sea Oil and Gas Industry

Debate between Michael Shanks and Stella Creasy

Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am reassured that it is this Minister who is looking at the issue and fighting for those jobs in Aberdeen. I am acutely aware that the previous Government did not take full account of the impact of this situation. We now know that using Rosebank, which the shadow Minister raised, would create 50 times more climate-harming gases than the previous Government admitted, and that the climate crisis is one of the biggest drags on growth. I know that the Minister is committed, in common with all Labour Members, to protecting jobs and the planet, but what more can we do within our supply chains to support his work in getting growth and the just transition that this country desperately needs, without Rosebank?

[Michael Shanks]

The House will understand that I will not be drawn on applications that are currently awaiting decision, so I will not comment on that specific application. On my hon. Friend’s broader point, as has already been said, the net zero economy is growing three times faster than the economy at large, and it is our economic future. I recently attended the G20 in South Africa, where Ministers from across the world were talking about the opportunities offered by the clean power transition in their own countries. It is the economic opportunity of the 21st century, as well as how we deliver on climate leadership: contrary to what Opposition Members might now think, that still matters. It is only right that we deliver a genuinely just transition for the workers who have powered our country for the past 60 years. We have seen where transitions have not been done well. The previous Government failed to put in place any kind of plan, but we will deliver a plan that delivers a just transition and our economic future.

Rosebank and Jackdaw Oilfields

Debate between Michael Shanks and Stella Creasy

Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

We are still digesting the detail of the judgment, but my understanding is that, as the right hon. Gentleman puts it, the Supreme Court made it clear that applications should take account of scope 3 emissions. In the process that we put in place, which I will not pre-empt, we will have to justify how the applications have met that requirement. It will then be for the North Sea Transition Authority to make a judgment and the Secretary of State, ultimately, to make a decision. If somebody wanted to take that judgment to a judicial review, they could be entitled to do so, but the right hon. Gentleman is quite right that the decision will be for the Government.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for the thoughtful way in which he is proceeding. We all recognise that climate change is a threat to growth rather than a driver of it, whether that is through flooding, fires or the chaos that it causes. It is therefore shocking that the previous Government did not take account of emissions and the impact that they might have on our economy in making the decision to proceed with Rosebank, and it is right that we rethink that.

I recognise what the Minister said about court judgments. May I press him, though? His predecessors had to admit that there was no energy security in proceeding with Rosebank because 80% of the oil and gas that it would provide would not be for the UK market, so it would not drive down British consumers’ bills. Is that still his understanding of the project? Is that not another good reason why we should rethink it?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend is right to make the point that climate change is not a future threat but a present reality. This year alone there have been a number of examples around the world of that present reality already having a huge and devastating impact on people’s lives.

On the balance that we want to strike, yes, the oil and gas industry is important to our economy and to our energy mix, but the long-term future requires us to move towards clean power. Even if gas is extracted from the North sea, it does not help with consumer bills in this country, because it is traded on an open market to the highest bidder and sold by private companies. This is not a nationalised industry—it is owned by private companies, and gas is extracted by private companies and sold by private companies—and consumers in this country do not benefit from their gas coming from abroad or from the North sea.