Oil and Gas

Debate between Richard Tice and Harriet Cross

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Commons Chamber

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

I am almost a little shocked to have to follow that, but I will do my best. It explains exactly why I do not understand Labour’s oil and gas policy. The unions do not understand its policy. The Tony Blair Institute does not understand its policy. The industry does not understand its policy. The renewables industry does not understand its policy. That is not because we cannot understand something; it is because the policy is absolutely crazy.

We have just heard that we will be using oil and gas for decades. We have just heard that that oil and gas has to come from overseas, but much less of it will need to come from overseas if we open up drilling in the North sea, if we get rid of the EPL and if we make the North sea a basin that companies can and want to invest in and drill from.

Jackdaw and Rosebank are prime examples that could be producing by the end of the year. Jackdaw could be powering 1.6 million homes, but the Government do not want it to. They would prefer to import from abroad, because then they can say that we are a country progressing towards net zero. They can say that their renewables ambition is kicking ahead. It does not matter about the jobs they are kicking or the tax being lost in the meantime. It does not matter about the £50 billion of investment or the £165 billion of economic activity that will be lost. The Government and the Secretary of State will have their headline. He will go down as the Secretary of State who managed to shut down the North sea and who got us off oil and gas. But it is a fantasy. It is never going to happen—it cannot happen.

Seventy per cent of the UK’s energy—not electricity, but energy—comes from oil and gas, and it will for many, many years. No matter how much the Government wish that we were not reliant on oil and gas, we are, and no matter how much the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) wishes that we did not need our own oil and gas, we do. We need our own oil and gas and we need oil and gas from abroad, and we will for a long time yet.

I care about the workers in the oil and gas sector, because those workers are my constituents. They are my friends and neighbours. They are the people who hold our communities together. However, this is not just about north-east Scotland. Every single Member of this House has constituents who work in the oil and gas sector and who will be listening to the debate today, worrying about their jobs and wondering why the Government are so determined to sacrifice their livelihoods in order to import more from abroad. When we meet workers in north-east Scotland, they do not talk about their jobs in the future; they talk about their jobs now. They worry about how their jobs are going to be protected and why the Government do not want to protect them. The apparent “Labour” Government—the Government who are meant to protect jobs—do not value oil and gas jobs.

[Richard Tice]

This is a critical question. Who is more dangerous to the British economy—the Secretary of State for Energy or the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

[Harriet Cross]

I do not want to pick between the two, but as a double act they are dreadful for the UK economy.

From now and into the years ahead, the transition, which the Government are so dedicated to, will see the industry move away from Aberdeen, because the supply chain, which they know is so important to the transition, is sustained by the oil and gas sector. Production from the North sea decreased by 40% last year. That is not because of geology; it is because of the energy profits levy and the ban on licences.