Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stuart Blair Donaldson and Callum McCaig

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

1. What plans his Department has to ensure future defence co-operation with allies and partners.

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

11. What plans his Department has to ensure future defence co-operation with allies and partners.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Michael Fallon)]

I hope you will allow me, Mr Speaker, to add my tribute to Jo Cox and her work on behalf of the Syrian people, which she pressed very hard on and which must never be forgotten.

Our strategic defence review set out ambitious plans to strengthen our work with allies and partners to promote our security and prosperity. We will continue to lead in NATO, the G7 and the United Nations, and maintain strong and enduring relationships with the United States and our other friends and allies around the world.

Offshore Oil and Gas Industry

Debate between Stuart Blair Donaldson and Callum McCaig

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Callum McCaig]

I agree wholeheartedly. The make-up of the North sea is different from what it was and what has gone past. As well as the innovation and expertise, there is also the infrastructure that is already there, as a number of Members have mentioned. Once that is gone, there are fields that will go from being marginal on the positive side to being marginal on the negative side or just entirely uneconomic.

Returning to the point I was making on the missed opportunities, every single barrel of oil that we do not produce from the North sea we will need to get from somewhere else. We import oil and gas, and we should not underestimate the importance that being an oil producer has for the UK’s balance of payments, which, frankly, are not great as it is. If we have to rely more on imported oil and gas for our supply, it will further exacerbate that issue. If we miss the opportunities to further develop and support the supply chain, the ability to provide the project management, skills, expertise and technology will go with it as oil and gas is exploited in other, perhaps more favourable basins. The prizes are clear: jobs, energy security and support for our balance of payments and exports. Those huge prizes are there, and if the industry is given the right support, they can and will be obtained.

The Prime Minister has talked about building a bridge to the future, and that is necessary and required. The same turn of phrase has been used by my colleague, the Scottish Government’s Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing. We have left a period of very high oil prices, but as day follows night, oil prices will go up. None of us can predict when that will be, but at least until now it has been the case that they have always gone back up again. The difference in supply and demand that we are talking about is not huge, but the impacts that that has over a sustained period of time change the price and make it far more volatile and far lower.

It is a curious situation, but Aberdeen is probably one of the few places in Europe where the local radio stations tell their listeners what the oil price is. At the end of every bulletin, the newsreader will say something like, “Oil trades at $36 a barrel”—folk are happy with $36 a barrel, because it is better than the $29 a barrel it was at. That is strange, and on the face of it that seems like a slightly useless snippet of information, but it signifies how important the industry is to the city that I am proud to represent.

What would a tax cut do? It would provide the clearest signal that the Government can offer that they believe in the future of oil and gas and will do everything they can to ensure that that future is realised as well as possible. We are talking about a multibillion pound investment in a platform 40 or 50 miles out into the North sea, and that is a significant investment. That investment is likely to have a lifespan well in excess of 20 years—potentially, it is 30 to 40 years. In the time that that field will be looking to make its money back, the oil price will go through many ups and downs, but when many international companies are looking across the globe at where to invest their ever-shrinking piles of capital—the oil industry globally is facing a crisis of investment—we need to be at the most competitive we can be. Part of that is the skills, innovation and expertise that I am absolutely certain we have, but that change in the headline rate of tax over the lifespan of a field can put the decision from being, “We do not proceed,” to, “Yes, let’s press the button and go ahead and develop this field.”

Reducing the headline rate of tax is the clearest single way that we can boost the efforts in exploration and in developing the fields that we know about, and it will provide the clearest way forward on the bridge to the future. It will require people to invest. Whether that is companies using the strength of their balance sheet—some are doing that, buying up other operators and such like—or whether it is borrowed money, if we can de-risk the investment decision as much as possible, there is a greater chance that someone will invest that money in the UK continental shelf, as opposed to one of the other basins.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson]

Does my hon. Friend agree with the assessment of Oil & Gas UK that to transform the basin, the UK continental shelf needs to become the most attractive mature oil and gas province in the world in which to do business? That is not just one of the most, but the most attractive place to do business.

[Callum McCaig]

I agree with my hon. Friend and Oil & Gas UK on that. The North sea, particularly at Aberdeen, benefits from being the best place to live to work in the oil and gas industry, but it needs to be the best place in terms of the assets and the tax regime.