Green Madness: Labour Party to Ban All New Gas and Oil Projects in North Sea

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer visits an on-shore wind farm near Grimsby in Lincolns
Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

The left-wing Labour Party is reportedly prepping plans to ban all new oil and gas developments in the North Sea and only provide loans and investments to so-called green projects.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who is widely predicted to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, is set to make the green agenda a central feature of his pitch to voters in the upcoming general election.

Among these plans, London’s Sunday Times reported, will be a prohibition on government licences for new gas and oil projects in the North Sea, in favour of so-called renewables instead under what is going to be dubbed the “green prosperity” plan to transform Britain into a “clean energy superpower”. The radical green agenda would also see fossil fuel firms excluded from government investment and borrowing schemes.

Speaking to the publication, a Labour Party source said:  “We are against the granting of new licences for oil and gas in the North Sea. They will do nothing to cut bills as the Tories have acknowledged.

“They undermine our energy security and would drive a coach and horse through our climate targets. But Labour would continue to use existing oil and gas wells over the coming decades and manage them sustainably as we transform the UK into a clean energy superpower.”

At present, around 45 per cent of the UK’s gas requirements are met with domestic sources, meaning that the country could be forced to become more reliant on adversarial regimes in the Middle East or Russia in order to keep the lights on under Starmer’s plan, which would reduce domestic gas and oil production by 80 per cent in ten years.

The Climate Change Committee has expressed doubt over cutting off production in the North Sea, which is believed to have around 10 billion barrels of oil and gas remaining. The committee, which advises the government, has said that there are “emissions advantages” to tapping domestic energy resources as opposed to importing from far-off lands.

However, they also noted that some of these gains might be mitigated given that much of the domestic production is sent overseas.

The leaked green plans by the Labour Party were criticised by the chief executive of Offshore Energies UK, Dave Whitehouse, who said: “People wouldn’t forgive anyone who shut down Britain’s oil and gas industry and replaced it with imports… Labour’s approach risks sending the wrong signals.

“By investing in homegrown production, we avoid costlier, less secure, and higher carbon footprint imports while supporting the infrastructure we need to make cleaner, more affordable energy in the UK. We urge Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves [the shadow chancellor] to fulfil their promise to listen to industry.”

While the left-wing party looks to accelerate the green agenda, the governing Tory Party has not proven itself much better in terms of energy policy, with oil production in the North Sea being 26 per cent lower than in 2018. The poorly-named Conservative Party also imposed a ban on fracking for natural gas over dubious concerns about seismic tremours.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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