North Sea Oil and Gas

I beg to move, That this House has considered North Sea oil and gas. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. Energy security is a matter that impacts all of us. It allows us to reliably meet daily demand without concern for supply disruption or price spiking. It ensures that families can heat their homes, that schools and hospitals can continue to serve the community, and that drivers can stay on the road. Energy security is intertwined with everything we do. In a state of emergency, it guarantees a resilient power source, allowing essential service operations to continue unimpeded, and upholds our national security—indeed, energy security is national security. It should not be controversial to say that our energy security should be a high priority for the Government, yet here we are, turning our back on the North sea oil industry, all in the name of ideologically driven targets, irrespective of global context or the will of the British public. Time and again, it has been highlighted that the UK emits less than 1% of the world’s global emissions, while the top three nations together emit over 50%. Rather than acknowledge that context, the Energy Secretary continues to push a deadline that is 10 years ahead of the largest emitter and that precedes the third by 20 years, before the second has even set an official target. Twenty years! That time could be spent on ensuring a balanced transition that does not push the UK into a scenario where energy demand exceeds supply capabilities. Instead, the Energy Secretary insists on maintaining our weak bargaining position by pursuing his relentless targets, ignoring our preparedness levels and dismissing the genuine needs and wants of the nation. From the opportunistic solar farms being sprung up at the expense of our agricultural sector and rural communities, to reaching strike prices of £90 to £95 per megawatt-hour in the latest wind auction, which far exceeds the wholesale gas price at £55 per megawatt-hour, the sacrifices being made, including the interests of the British people, evidently know no bounds. The argument is not about whether oil and gas will still be needed for years to come, because the Climate Change Committee and the Government themselves have already acknowledged that. Instead, it is a question of where our oil and gas come from. Believe it or not, a Government should support domestic production. A Government should be against deindustrialisation, especially at a time of rising political tension and subsequent volatility. Energy security and economic stability are two sides of the same coin.

I fully support more drilling in the North sea and the granting of more licences—I believe that is important for energy security—but I think it is important to be straight with the British people. As things currently stand, that would not lower their bills, because the oil and gas are sold on the international markets. Would it not be better to follow the example of Norway and put this under public control, which actually would lower people’s bills?

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman supports continued activity in the North sea, and I will address that point later on in my remarks. Increasing reliance on imports and blaming unstable global markets regardless of the product, when we have the ability to produce it domestically and help stabilise the market, is not just reckless; it is madness. That is not to mention the fact that offshoring our carbon emissions, such as importing from the US, does not help the planet; it simply allows the UK to portray lower emissions in national statistics, while facilitating the generation of three times higher emissions via this method of supply. We should be supporting any domestic production that reduces product cost, generates jobs and has the potential to add billions more into our economy. It is no secret that households across the country are struggling with their energy bills. The UK currently has the highest industrial energy prices among developed nations and the second highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world. That stark fact is evident to anyone paying energy bills, and it is about to get worse. The Ofgem cap for July to September has risen by 13%, reaching £1,862, which is £294 more than when the Government came into office in July 2024. I am not sure where the Energy Secretary’s promise to decrease energy bills by £300 has gone, but it looks like he actually meant an increase. There is nothing complicated about these figures. The cost of energy is rising, and households and businesses across the country are feeling the impact. A recent poll found that, although 60% of people across the UK support reducing emissions, 68% of those supporters believe that reducing energy bills should be the first priority. That result was echoed in another poll, which found that 71% of people who support reducing emissions do so on the condition that it does not increase their energy bills. The undeniable fact is that these inflexible targets are driving up energy bills. As a democratically elected entity, the Government’s first priority should be to represent the nation and act in its best interests, but the public are being hung out to dry. It is not only the bill payers paying the brunt; thousands of oil and gas workers are also on the chopping block. Giving rising unemployment, it would be reasonable to presume that the Government would abandon any policy that compounds the issue further, but of course that is far too sensible a suggestion. They appear to prefer to allow 1,000 jobs a month to be lost from the oil and gas sector in places that rely on the industry such as Aberdeen, rather than admit they are on the wrong path. I take this opportunity to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) to his place. He emphatically won a by-election last week with almost 50% of the vote, which is a vindication of the fact that the public—particularly workers in places dependent on the oil and gas industry for employment—reject the pace and scale of the Government’s net zero agenda.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the clear message that the people of Aberdeen sent last week was that they support the oil and gas sector and the jobs that come with it, and that it is much better that we produce oil and gas ourselves? It is much better for our jobs, our economy and the environment if we produce more in this country, rather than relying on imports.

I thank my hon. Friend for his first spoken contribution as an elected Member. He is already demonstrating his resoundingly strong voice on behalf of the people of Aberdeen South, many of whom are employed in the industry and terrified about what the scale and pace of what the Government are doing represent for their futures. It appears that the Government would rather ignore warnings that their refusal to replace the energy profits levy is putting 200,000 jobs at growing risk than delay their ideology for even a few years. They would even rather ignore the Scottish Affairs Committee’s warnings that clean energy jobs are not keeping pace with oil and gas job losses, rather than give up on this net zero legacy. I have one question for the Government: what do they say to the thousands of workers who risk losing their jobs or have already lost them? The Government will claim that clean energy is providing 100,000 jobs, but have they shared the detail on the quality of those jobs and the pay cuts that the workers are having to take? Why has that not happened? Because it means that the Government would have to take responsibility for a mess that they are compounding. The bottom line is this: if we want to support those workers, we must support the North sea oil and gas industry. The ban on new oil and gas licences is leaving at least 2.9 billion barrels of oil in the ground—billions in monetary value that could be added to our economy, thousands of jobs that could be secured and millions of homes powered. I predict what the rebuttal point will be: it does not matter how many barrels come from the North sea because it is all sold on an international market and therefore will have no impact on our energy prices, which are dictated by global pricing.

About 90% of the reserves in the North sea have already been extracted. Has the hon. Gentleman looked at the analysis of how expensive it is to reach the rest of the reserves? One reason they are still there is that it is far more expensive to extract them. Has he seen whether there is an economic case for doing so?

Underpinning so many of the decisions taken by the Government is a fundamental lack of appreciation for how businesses take investment decisions. They are not incentivised to do so. Allow the market to operate by restricting regulation and financial pressure on it, and businesses will innovate. They will invest to extract resources that are viable because they can be sold on the international market. It is basic economics that the more product they have to meet demand, the more substantial the price reduction. Scarcity drives cost. The Labour party loves to argue that our North sea industry produces too little to have a significant impact on the global market, but less than 1% of global carbon emissions appears significant enough to dictate our national energy strategy. Why, then, is a 1.5% share of the global market considered too small to be worth pursuing? The answer is that it does not serve the “net zero by 2050 at any cost” narrative. The fact that our energy security and our North sea industries are in a crisis is not new information. We all know it. Members across this House know it. Tony Blair knows it. Even the Energy Secretary himself knows it; he just will not admit it. It is time to put personal ambition and ideology aside. People need their bills reduced and jobs secured now. They are tired of being left to the whim of global market fluctuations, when the Government are not acting to stabilise the market by increasing supply and securing jobs. It is time to do what is best for our country and support the North sea industry that provides employment, helps to regulate global pricing and protects our national energy security.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for introducing the debate and support his ambitions to take this issue forward. It is no surprise that the hon. Gentleman and his party have been at the fore in pressing it, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). I thank them and add my support to what they do. It is a pleasure to see the Minister in his place. He always has a quiet demeanour and a smile. He sometimes even gives the answers we wish to have, even though we may not entirely agree. We thank him for acting in a way that endears him to all of us—that is quite a talent, and he does it well. I want to highlight our real concerns about the oil and gas industry and the fact that we are highly reliant on international supply at a time, as the Holy Bible says, “of wars and rumours of wars”. That is clearly where we are now. The pastor at my church told us before Christmas that there are 67 wars in the world. I speak for the hard-working families of Northern Ireland and the wider United Kingdom. We face a defining choice for our energy future. The North sea is not just a great geographical basin, as some seem to think, but a cornerstone of our national security and an economic engine, protecting our people from foreign reliance. Yet we hear voices in the Chamber demanding a premature end to domestic drilling. They want to shut down our fields and leave our resources in the ground. With respect, that approach is reckless economic self-harm. I welcome the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden), whose campaign was clearly fought on this subject. His resounding victory in that by-election indicates how people think, and we should take note. I say that with great respect to anyone else.

On the issue of what people think, does my hon. Friend agree that the vast majority of people across the UK are keen to see us move towards net zero? What they are not keen to do is to pursue a net zero eco-fanaticism that means we must have it today or tomorrow, rather than there being a gradual move towards it that does not impact on the household and business costs of everybody in the United Kingdom.

My hon. Friend and colleague brings forward the exact motivations of many people who speak to me. I endorse what he says, as I am sure others will. When it comes to our national future, security must always come first. Global instability proves that we cannot simply rely on foreign regimes for our oil and gas. If we abandon the North sea, we hand total control of our energy bills over to unpredictable international markets. We must remember the workers; I say that as a non-Labour man, but I mean it.

The hon. Gentleman is making a compelling case for the domestic industry. Does he agree that, in this troubled period of world history, our refining capacity in the UK should also be maintained? As he will know, Lindsey oil refinery in my constituency was recently closed, although some operations continue. Does he agree that we have to maintain capacity across the industry?

The hon. Gentleman underlines the issues. He is an assiduous and hard-working MP; his constituents should be proud of what he does. Those problems are happening not just in his area but elsewhere. The by-election result is an indication of that, for those who take note. Tens of thousands of highly skilled British jobs depend directly on this vital sector. Furthermore, we must confront the import myth: importing foreign fuel creates higher global emissions than extracting our own safely right here at home. The benefits cannot be ignored; that is an advantage of our own oil and our own drilling capacity. We need to support a common-sense transition that values realism over rhetoric. We must secure our baseload energy before transitioning to unproven new technologies. I am committed to protecting the Union; I know that the hon. Member for Bromsgrove is as well, and I thank him for that. Protecting the Union means understanding that a strong, self-reliant United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland requires utilising every single national resource available to us. Ultimately, domestic oil will fund the future, as the tax revenues generated from it are exactly what we need to finance our future green infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) referred to the fact that we are committed to net zero, but there has to be realism about how we approach that. The Democratic Unionist party stands for energy independence. We stand for the British worker. We stand for a pragmatic, common-sense strategy that keeps the lights on and the bills affordable.

The hon. Member says that the oil and gas belong to the Union, but it is Scotland’s oil and Scotland’s gas. Can he explain why Scottish bill payers are paying the highest bills in the UK when the oil and gas is being extracted from the North sea?

I do not entirely agree with the hon. Member’s comments, but he is my friend and I take his intervention along those lines. We talk regularly about many things but we do not always agree, and we do not agree on this issue. The oil in the North sea belongs to everybody in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, not just Scotland. It also belongs to Northern Ireland, Wales and England—it belongs to us. Why? Because we are part of the Union. What we produce in Northern Ireland is also for the benefit of those in Scotland. Sometimes those things are forgotten about. We will agree to disagree. We must continue to support the North sea industry, secure our borders and protect our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We need our Government to do the same. Families throughout the United Kingdom cannot afford the cost of living increases, many of which are due to energy prices being passed on to heat homes and to the rising cost of goods and services. If we are ever to allow disposable income to rise, which lifts the local economy, we have to get on top of the energy issue. Although we should look to renewables and continue to work on those projects at speed, until they are ready to be of any use, we must be sensible, pragmatic and honest, and use the resources at our disposal. Our families—my constituents in Strangford and those across Northern Ireland—are calling out for help. Let us give them the help they need. With that in mind, I look forward to the reassurance that the Minister will give to me and many others in the Chamber.