Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stuart Blair Donaldson and Andrea Leadsom(9 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)
The Government are fully committed to the oil and gas industry. In fact, the first visit that I made as the Minister was to Aberdeen. The industry is vital to our energy security, and it supports about 375,000 jobs across the United Kingdom. We fully recognise the huge challenge presented by lower oil prices, and accept the Oil and Gas Authority’s Call to Action report. The OGA is working with groups such as the Scottish Energy Jobs Taskforce to encourage companies to consider all possible alternatives to redundancy, as well as ensuring that we keep the vital skills that we will need in the future.
Stuart Blair Donaldson
I welcome the OGA’s early identification of the need to support a technology and innovation strategy. What measures will the Minister introduce to encourage technology and innovation, and to boost efficiencies in the oil and gas sector?
Andrea Leadsom
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the legislation to establish the OGA formally is currently being dealt with in the House of Lords. The authority’s key responsibility will be to maximise the economic recovery from the North sea basin, and it is already fully employed in that respect. The Government have made some fiscal changes to promote investment, and, importantly, we have also invested £20 million in seismic surveying of under-explored areas in the North sea basin to try to identify new opportunities for businesses that are based there, in order to encourage the investment that we so badly want.
Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)
T5. Stability and simplicity are key for oil and gas operators to make investment decisions, but there have been more than 18 changes to the oil and gas fiscal regime in the past 15 years. Will the Secretary of State reassure me and the industry that there will be no tax rises for the industry for the remainder of this Parliament?
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that that is really a question for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, but I think he will accept that the Chancellor has taken great steps to try to improve the fiscal regime to encourage more oil exploration. By creating the Oil and Gas Authority, we have shown our commitment to trying to ensure that we maximise the economic recovery from the North sea basin.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stuart Blair Donaldson and Andrea Leadsom
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)
The Government are committed to supporting the oil and gas industry, which is vital to our energy supply, as well as supporting 375,000 jobs across the UK. We are establishing the new Oil and Gas Authority, which is already helping industry to drive down costs and improve efficiencies. The Chancellor has also introduced strong fiscal measures to maintain and build investment.
Stuart Blair Donaldson
The Aberdeen and Grampian chamber of commerce oil and gas survey showed that the industry believes that more needs to be done to increase exploration drilling, without which there will be no new projects. Will the Minister engage with the industry to develop proposals to incentivise exploration and protect long-term employment?
Andrea Leadsom
We are absolutely committed to that. The establishment of the Oil and Gas Authority under Dr Andy Samuel is a vital part of that. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government have provided some money for seismic studies to identify potential new finds. I assure him that we and the Oil and Gas Authority will be doing everything we can to support the very important work to maximise economic recovery from the North sea basin.