Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has to review the compatibility of sections 41 and 42 of the Infrastructure Act 2015 with the Government’s target to meet net zero emissions by 2050.

The Petroleum Act 1998 (as amended by the Infrastructure Act 2015, amongst others), places a duty on the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) to produce and give effect to one or more strategies to enable the principal objective of maximising the economic recovery of petroleum from UK waters to be met. The OGA has announced that it will shortly be revising its strategy and will have regard to the need for the oil and gas sector to minimise its own carbon emissions and support the transition to Net Zero.

As we transition to a low carbon economy, there will continue to be a need for oil and gas, which are projected to provide around two-thirds of our total primary energy demand in 2035. All scenarios proposed by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) setting out how we could meet our 2050 emissions target include demand for natural gas.