Rosebank Oilfield: Government Policy

Simon Opher Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Like many of my constituents, I am alarmed at the suggestion of even more carbon extraction from the North sea. Like them, I find it hard to believe that we can be considering this after the summer we had. According to researchers, this year’s heatwaves in the UK caused around 4,500 deaths, and the UN is now saying that we are on track for a 2.8° temperature rise.

The lowest-polluting countries are facing the sharpest impact, from Nepal to Bangladesh, Somalia and more. We are staring at climate breakdown, and it seems like madness that we are even having a conversation about more carbon extraction and more oil drilling, or about slashing the electric vehicle quota and unleashing more fossil fuel consumption. All of that is on top of the decisions to approve Jackdaw and cut heat pump subsidies.

Progress has been far too slow, but to reverse the gains that have been made on the UK’s green transition should be unthinkable and will not be forgiven by future generations. At this critical point, I worry that senior politicians have decided that the climate is a foregone conclusion and that we should take a lead from Trump and “drill baby, drill” for some short-term gains—but those gains would be diminishingly small.

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Apsana Begum]

I will not be giving way.

We know that Rosebank and Jackdaw drilling will have no impact on prices at the pump or on household bills. Short-term gains are quickly overshadowed by the costs of the clean-up bill and climate damage. Rosebank will not provide long-term security for North sea jobs. We know that these projects—Rosebank and Jackdaw—will generate an awful lot of money for Shell and Equinor, so much so that big oil is threatening a capital strike. After hundreds of meetings with fossil fuel lobbyists, I suggest that the Minister should spend less time listening carefully to them and more time listening to constituents like mine who are telling us clearly, “No new oil and gas.”

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Oil and gas is energy treasure. That is the reality. Oil and gas represents 80%-plus of all the energy that we use currently, and that will be the case for many decades to come—way beyond 2050. Any nation blessed with such energy treasure is trying to extract it as fast as they possibly can, and we should do the same. Quite rightly, the Foreign Secretary has allowed the extraction of oil and gas in the Falkland Islands, so the idea that we would not allow the extraction of oil and gas in the North sea, just outside the wonderful nation of Scotland, is completely bizarre.

The numbers are fantastic: more than £8 billion of GDP; 2,000 jobs during construction; and 500 jobs permanently—those are big, serious numbers.

[Dr Opher]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Richard Tice]

I will not give way, if that is okay, because so many want to speak.

That is hundreds and hundreds of jobs directly and indirectly. Frankly, it is financially gross negligence not to extract that energy treasure. That is the simple reality.

The myth is that because the oil is exported, we should not extract it. Guess what? It goes to refineries in Europe, because we were stupid enough to shut down our refineries in the past 20 years, only for some 65% of what is exported to come back to the United Kingdom, as a parliamentary Committee heard recently. We need to take advantage of this treasure.

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[Dr Opher]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Torcuil Crichton]

I will not be giving way. That is why I support a pragmatic transition, utilising domestic oil production, rather than importing it, and supporting Scottish skills and jobs as we move the workforce across to renewables.

Let us be clear eyed about this: Rosebank, of course, would support jobs—as the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) pointed out—and yes, it would support £24 billion in economic activity and give us tax revenues, but let us not pretend that approving Rosebank will save the North sea, or that its refusal means the end of the North sea story. The North sea is a declining basin, with more than 70,000 jobs gone under the previous Government, and, realistically, jobs will continue to move away from the North sea as the sector is wound down.

Transition, however, is not the same as abandonment. That is why the energy wealth fund announced by the Chancellor and moving jobs across are so important. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) said, I believe that there should be no new licensing under the Energy Independence Bill. That makes sense. We will need gas for 2045, but without new licences, the reduction in North sea gas production will be 97%, and with new licences, 95%—we are fighting about that 2% in the transition.

We should actually be using the success of the North sea oil and gas sector in the growing renewables sector, and using the skills and supply chains developed over decades to give us the next generation of energy jobs. The worst thing we could do at this time is to switch off the North sea and to be foolhardy in our haste. The transition from oil and gas to clean energy has to be done, but we need to support the energy workforce, our domestic energy security and the transition.

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[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg.

Today, I urge the Government to take the same common-sense approach to the decision over Rosebank that it applied to the decision over the Jackdaw gasfield. Over its lifetime, Rosebank would contribute an estimated £24 billion to the UK economy and on average it would support over 500 UK-based full-time jobs, with £500 million making its way every year to the Treasury in tax revenue by the end of this Parliament. As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about the threats posed by Russia, Iran and other hostile actors, I believe that a decision to approve Rosebank will help to ensure that oil supplies for Europe are not constrained by the geopolitical choke-points that we have seen driving up the cost of living in recent years.

Let me be absolutely clear that I support the Government’s net zero targets and recognise the importance of bold, practical action on climate change. However, the transition must be delivered in a way that protects jobs, ensures energy security and carries public support.

[Dr Opher]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Luke Akehurst]

Sorry, no.

As the UK will continue to consume oil and gas for the foreseeable future, it makes little environmental sense to offshore production to other countries outside Europe, which often have higher emissions and additional transportation costs, only to import the same resources back into Britain. A decision to withhold the approval of Rosebank will not change whether we use oil in the short to medium term. Instead, it will determine whether those resources are produced responsibly here in the UK while we continue to invest in the clean energy industries of the future.

With a progressive Government in power that faces up to the challenge posed by climate change, we could even ensure that the Rosebank project helps to pull us towards our climate obligations and not away from them, through the energy wealth fund, which has already been announced and which will reinvest revenues from oil and gas into renewable energy. A decision to approve Rosebank could therefore move us closer to a clean energy system and create even more jobs on top of those directly linked to the Rosebank field.

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[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) on securing a debate that is so incredibly important to my constituents.

Drilling at Rosebank would be a mistake for our climate goals and it would not accomplish the very things that many voices arguing in favour of it claim it would. I represent a community where fuel poverty is real; it is real in those rural homes that struggle with insulation and it is real for the families that come to my surgeries and tell me they struggle with the cost of heating oil. I do not believe that drilling at Rosebank would help those families; indeed, it would continue our destructive addiction to fossil fuels at the precise time we should be looking at the geopolitical situation and weaning ourselves off them.

I have not discovered this issue out of political convenience. I have always been a proud member of the environmental movement. My constituency is one where protecting our landscape is paramount. It is the land of Hadrian’s wall, swathes of peatland, the Tyne river and, until a few years ago, the Sycamore Gap tree. My constituents have been proud of the natural beauty of Northumberland for generations. Protecting and conserving what we have should not be a left-wing idea; it should be the oldest idea that we have.

Over the summer, I surveyed my constituents. Hundreds of people took the time to answer and 89% said protecting the environment and fighting climate change is a key priority for them. When I asked whether they would support granting new oil and gas licences or expanding current drilling, 98% said no.

[Dr Opher]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Joe Morris]

I am afraid not. I would invite anyone to check Hexham Matters to see whether 98% of my constituents agree on anything else.

Over its lifetime, Rosebank is projected to release emissions equal to about 70% of everything that the UK emits in a year. That is more than the combined emissions of the 73 lowest emitting countries and territories on Earth. Of those 73 countries, some are the poorest in the world and the most exposed to the effects of the climate change, and they are all to be outweighed by a single oil field.

I want us to be the Government who have the courage to say no to Rosebank. We came into office promising no new licences. I am aware of the technical arguments, but the public believe that Rosebank would represent a new licence. Conserving the natural world should not be a preserve of those of us on the left; it never was. However, there is a bloc in this country that wants a cleaner, fairer and more secure future, and it spans all parties and none. It includes the climate campaigners who come to my roundtable, as well as the constituents I meet regularly. I urge the Minister to listen to their voices.

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[Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) for securing this vital debate, because my constituents in regularly flooded Shrewsbury are incredibly concerned about the environmental impact that could come from approving the licence for Rosebank, and several local environmental groups and many residents got in touch to tell me so. People such as Diane, Amy, Hannah, Ian, Jamie and Phil want our Government Ministers to know the strength of feeling against fossil fuels, which belong in the past and not in our future. In fact, Hannah described Labour’s manifesto commitment not to approve any new licences as

“lighting a beacon of hope for a better tomorrow”.

The Government have already approved the Jackdaw gas licence—described as a “balanced decision”—promising to ringfence the £1 billion tax revenue for the energy wealth fund so that we can move forward with our investment in Great British Energy renewable projects to guarantee our national energy security. However, I would urge the Minister and our Secretary of State not to make a decision in favour of Rosebank and not to add further to our climate emergency.

[Dr Opher]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Julia Buckley]

I am sorry; I will not.

Instead, can we show our international leadership on the environmental emergency and use the Rosebank moment as an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to climate resilience, rejecting the oil licence in favour of renewables so that we can uphold our net zero promise and relight that beacon of hope for a better tomorrow?

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[Pippa Heylings]

I will not.

Instead, those advisers said that limiting the expansion of fossil fuel production must be a key priority. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has set a new objective to support

“a globally standard-setting, 1.5°C and climate science-aligned approach to future oil and gas production.”

[Dr Opher]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Pippa Heylings]

I will.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

[Dr Opher]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. Does she agree with me, and about 150 constituents who have written to me, that instead of investing in the exploration of oilfields such as Rosebank, which would cost £4.1 billion—it is a difficult field to explore—and would not lower bills, we should invest £4.1 billion in renewable energy?