Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I suspect that for many Members, there are times when votes in this place can cause a sleepless night or two. For me, this vote has caused a number of sleepless nights. There is a dilemma: on the one hand, the responsibility to care for the lives and livelihoods of those people we represent today; and on the other, the responsibility to care for those who will come in the future and to leave the planet in a better place for generations in times ahead.

On the one hand, there is the risk to our energy security, a much greater risk than any of us would have predicted just a couple of years ago, due to the war in Ukraine, the situation in the middle east and in the Red sea, and who knows what next. The Government are right on energy security that we cannot move away from fossil fuels overnight. We need to prioritise energy security for as long as we need fossil fuels. Importing LNG involves much greater emissions than using gas extracted here. Relying on overseas energy means jobs overseas, not British jobs.

On the other hand, there is the risk of climate change. In my Essex constituency, the summer before last we saw at first-hand how real that risk is, with a really hot summer and raging fires. Recently, across the UK, so many people have witnessed awful floods. We know that the warmer the weather, the wetter it will be. A couple of years ago, I saw at first-hand the true devastation when I went to the eastern part of Ethiopia, a region that a few years ago was teeming with wildlife. They used to say you should never ask a herder how many animals he had, because you would never be able to stop counting. Right now, that land is totally devastated by consecutive years of drought. Millions of people will no longer be able to live in the lands where they have lived for generations. The impact of that climate change will mean more people will be forced to leave their countries. There will be more migration and that will impact us here at home.

Unless there is action to tackle emissions and climate change, we will see those impacts accelerating and worsening. We also know that actions to tackle climate change need to be global. The Government are right that the UK has done more than any other G7 nation to reduce emissions. They are right that other countries also need to play their part. Incidentally, I get really cross when people say to me, “Countries like China and India are doing nothing.” Actually, China is now investing in more renewables than any other country, and more than the US and Europe put together. India is on track to deliver 500 GW of renewables by 2030, which is absolutely massive. Countries are moving. At COP28 just last month, which I attended, countries all over the world signed up to the pledge to transition away from fossil fuels. We signed that pledge, too.

The Government will rightly point out that even with these new oil and gas licences, the North sea will continue to be a declining basin and that we are transitioning away from fossil fuels, but the perception internationally is that by granting these licences the UK may be walking away from our promises on climate change. When encouraging other countries to do the right thing, leadership matters and the UK has a key role to play. We hosted the world in Glasgow at COP26. If we, the UK, are seen or perceived to be walking away from the promises we made to the world, then other countries might walk away from their promises, too. That is why it is vital that we are seen to be keeping the promises we make.

We must continue to cut energy waste and reduce our emissions. I am very proud to be a member of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. As one of only two members of the Committee contributing to the debate, I will talk about some of the things that have been done and that we must do more of.

Millions of homes have become more energy efficient. We should continue to do more, especially in owner-occupied homes. The priority has been social rented homes, which has been very successful, but we must to do more to help owner-occupied homes. We have unlocked massive amounts of renewable energy, but we can unlock more. It is really important that we get it connected to the grid more quickly—the Government are working on that. I would also like to see more local energy networks, so we can have local energy production nearer to where we have high energy risks and then we would not need quite so much extra grid transmission.

We need to accelerate new nuclear. There have been some good announcements about that this month, but, especially in respect of the small modular reactors, can we go faster? We need to remove barriers to more innovations such as hydrogen, especially for heat, and we need to support the transition to more zero emission vehicles, especially for those in terraced houses. I say to the Minister that we need to get rid of the “pavement tax” so that charging is affordable for all. On all those matters the Government have made great progress, but we need to do more. Incidentally, I will take no lessons from Labour Members on this, because in their 13 years of power they did so little to cut emissions.

The Government are right to say that the transition to net zero needs to be affordable, practical and pragmatic, but it should also involve being honest with people. It is estimated that even the new gas licences will provide only 103 days’ worth of gas—1% of today’s demand—between now and 2050, so let us have an honest discussion about the fact that this Bill will not do everything. However, it is important for energy security that we continue to look at how we can best meet our local energy needs. On offshore oil and gas, I have first-hand experience of how important being a respected world leader on environment issues can be in persuading other countries to change their behaviour.

Members will recall that 10 years ago the world watched in horror when the Deepwater Horizon explosion caused an environmental catastrophe in the gulf of Mexico. At the time the European Union had a knee-jerk reaction, and produced draft legislation that would have banned all deep-water drilling. As a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy at the time, I was appointed by MEPs to lead the work of the European Parliament in scrutinising that directive. I met offshore safety experts, environmentalists, geologists and regulators, and it became clear to me that the European Commission’s proposals were not the right way forward. Time and again I was told that not all deep-water drilling was dangerous and not all shallow-water drilling was safe. I remember tabling more than 300 amendments to the European Commission’s text, changing it paragraph by paragraph so that instead of banning all deep-water drilling the Commission would take a site-specific approach, looking at the risks of every single proposal.

I persuaded the British Labour Members of the European Parliament that that was the right thing to do, and I persuaded the British Liberal Democrat MEPs that it was the right thing to do. I persuaded parliamentarians from 27 countries that it was the right thing to do. They agreed because they knew that the UK was the world leader when it came to the environmental and safety standards of the offshore oil and gas industry.

[David Duguid]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Vicky Ford]

I am going to carry on.

My point is that maintaining our leadership in environmental standards in the North sea is key to persuading other countries to think about their energy in the future. The Government say that they want this country to continue to be a world leader, but at this point we have lost a bit of leadership to Norway, where gas is produced in a way that is 50% less carbon-intensive than the way in which gas is produced in our North sea. Measures such as banning flaring, electrifying the production process with the use of floating wind and working with neighbouring countries to see how our carbon capture capacity can be used to decarbonise the refining processes could make a huge difference to the carbon emissions that are caused and used when we are producing oil and gas in our North sea. As we make the transition away from fossil fuels, I should like to see the world move towards considering how we can make that industry as low-carbon as possible.

Some of my colleagues have talked about amendments relating to some of these issues, and I hope the Minister and the Government will be open to any such amendments. I think that, as currently worded, the Bill does not really let the Government do anything that they cannot do already—they can already grant these licences—but it does give us an opportunity to show that this country has the ambition to ensure that any carbon emissions that come from fossil fuels during this transition are as low as possible, and that our industry is as clean as possible. That would help the UK to maintain its world-leading voice in environmental negotiations and encourage other countries to clean up and decarbonise their production, thus helping to ensure that the global transition away from fossil fuels takes place in as clean a way as possible. I believe that we should be able to do all that while also addressing those other priorities such as delivering and improving our energy security, and delivering and improving job security here at home.