Rosebank and Jackdaw Oilfields

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

On 20 June last year, the Supreme Court ruled that regulators must consider the impact of burning extracted oil and gas in the environmental impact assessment for new projects. Of course, we were already in an election cycle by that point. I do not know what the previous Government would have done, but a Supreme Court judgment gave a very clear steer that regulators must consider that impact, so I find it very hard to believe that they would have continued to defend a case that the Supreme Court clearly stated could not continue. This Government took the view that it would be wrong to put more public money into the case, when the two applicants themselves accepted the judgment of the Supreme Court. If the Opposition are saying that they would have continued to pour public money into such a case, I would be very surprised—or perhaps disappointed, but not surprised.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

Conservative Members are speaking up now, but I was present at the United Nations General Assembly when they risked investor confidence in the UK. The then Prime Minister rowed back on net zero commitments, risking investor confidence in the UK and risking our global reputation on climate leadership. This Government are putting us back on the world stage when it comes to climate leadership, and we have a goal: to deliver clean power by 2030. Does the Minister agree that the UK’s key growth sectors of the future include renewable energy, and that there will be jobs for the future in renewable energy and our own Great British Energy?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend’s point about investor confidence is important. Investors lost all confidence in this country under the previous Government; not quite knowing who was going to be in No. 10 or No. 11 at any given moment certainly did not help investor confidence. We are building back that confidence, and have already seen tens of billions of pounds in investment since we came to power, and 70,000 new jobs.

It matters that this country takes a leadership role on climate, because the transition that we want to deliver here is also being delivered right across the world. The country with the fastest transition to clean power last year was China. In some cases, Members of this Parliament are trying to row back on our net zero commitments. We are determined to double down on those commitments, because that is the best way to deliver stability and energy security, bring down bills and create the industrial future and jobs that this country needs.