Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Debate between Richard Holden and Harriet Cross

Friday 26th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome you to your position. I congratulate the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell) on his first contribution to this House; it already sounds as if he has made a huge contribution to the UK around the world, and I am sure his constituents are looking forward to him acting for them.

I will begin by echoing the words of my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) and for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) about the impact on agricultural and rural land of the Government’s plan to cover them with cables, pylons and other energy infrastructure. The sheer concentration of this infrastructure on prime agricultural land in communities such as New Deer, Maud, Turriff and Leylodge in my constituency and the apparent lack of ability for communities to engage in meaningful discussion on this will in no way bring the public along on this crucial national endeavour.

However, I am going to focus on the key issue for my constituents and those across north-east Scotland, and that is the oil and gas sector: the jobs, expertise and investment that we will be putting at risk if the Government rush towards their green energy agenda. No matter how much the Minister may wish otherwise, we cannot and will not have a green energy revolution without the existing oil and gas sector, its skills and, crucially, its funding. The companies that make their money from oil and gas developments now are the key investors in our renewable energy sector and carbon capture projects—that is undeniable. We must make the UK an attractive place to invest in all energies in order to attract and keep multinational companies here, and to keep them investing here in the future. We have to draw only a very short line to realise that if we dismiss, alienate and penalise the traditional oil and gas parts of energy companies, the boards of those same companies will turn their backs on the UK for more sympathetic and attractive investment opportunities elsewhere. We would lose not just the current investment in oil and gas, but the potential for investment in renewable energy.

Does the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero or the Minister expect that we will have stopped using oil and gas by 2030? Of course not, so why are we banning new oil and gas licences and cutting off our own domestic energy supply? Why are the Government happy to see tens of thousands of home-grown jobs put at risk, and why are they happy to increase our reliance on imports of oil and gas produced with a higher carbon footprint from more volatile markets overseas? If there is a reason other than simply to fulfil their narrative of being a “green energy superpower” I am yet to find it.

The UK, thanks largely to Aberdeen and the north-east, has long been an energy superpower—an oil and gas superpower. That status, built over half a century, has led to the energy sector’s skills, expertise, companies and workforce being honed and housed in north-east Scotland—not just the subsurface and technical skills of the likes of geologists and engineers, but, crucially, the experts in supply chains. Those will be vital to the renewable energy projects of the future. Our workers in the oil and gas sector know how to deliver huge, multinational, high-budget projects—exactly the skills that will be needed to deliver the Government’s green energy revolution. Again, the Government risk losing those crucial skills by moving too fast and not planning for a jobs and skills transition alongside the energy transition.

Labour idly calls the investment allowance aspect of the windfall tax a “loophole” and plans to remove it and increase the tax rate to 78%; indeed, it boasts about doing so. Yet there are estimates that the combination of no new licences and changes to the windfall tax will cost £20 billion in tax revenues and risk up to 100,000 direct and indirect jobs. Last year, the leader of the GMB union said that Labour’s plans to end new oil and gas licences are “self-defeating”. I agree.

[Mr Holden]

Does my hon. Friend agree that while windfall taxes can be levied on oil and gas that is extracted in the UK, we will not get those revenues for decades if we do not have oil and gas exploration in the North sea? We will see windfall taxes going to foreign Governments across the world but none coming here. Does she agree that it makes no sense at all, for jobs in Scotland or for the UK Exchequer, not to have oil and gas exploration in the North sea?

[Harriet Cross]

I absolutely agree. It is so important for all those reasons—for jobs and future tax revenues—that we retain our domestic supply of oil and gas. Alongside the leader of the GMB calling the Government’s plans “self-defeating”, the former leader of Aberdeen council quit Labour last year, saying its plans were a “brutal attack” on the sector. Again, I agree.

Just as Rome was not built in a day, the experience and expertise of the oil and gas sector—the energy sector—did not develop in a day. However, the vital skills and investment that we will rely on to deliver the transition to cleaner, greener energy will be lost in no time at all if the Government do not listen, appreciate them and act to protect them. The warning signs are there, and we must not ignore them. Without the existing workforce, the energy transition will take longer, be more expensive, and be less efficient—truly an unwanted trilogy for any Government.