North Sea Oil and Gas Industry

Debate between Stella Creasy and Michael Shanks

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 Stella Creasy and Michael Shanks

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.