Transitioning away from expensive oil and gas is what voters instructed Labour to do
Last week Keir Starmer entered Downing Street with a mandate to change the country. He promised to cut bills for good and achieve British energy independence from evil dictators like Putin. That work seems to be well underway.
In 72 hours the Labour government scrapped the ban on onshore wind which had been in place for more than 9 years - in doing so they made a major leap towards lifting families out of fuel poverty and tackling climate breakdown, the cause of the more frequent and intense weather we’re seeing across the country.
However, stories circulating this morning about the UK government’s actions on oil and gas licensing are not true. While it is still the policy of the government to ban new oil and gas licensing - a promise they were elected on - but the government has yet to enact it.
‘“As previously stated, we will not issue new licenses to explore new fields,” a spokesman for the department confirmed. When they do, it will be good news for us all, as well as a rare example of a politician sticking to their word.
Ending new licensing would be a first step towards fixing the UK’s broken energy system. For one thing, the amount of gas we would get from them would be pitiful - they are expected to provide just four days worth of gas a year on average. Remember too, that the UK has burned most of its gas, and exports most of its oil, so any new licenses wouldn't boost UK energy security either.
Then there’s the fact that any oil and gas that is extracted from the North Sea is sold at international prices, and so increasing domestic supply wont make any difference to gas prices as government ministers in the last Conservative government themselves publicly admitted. Switching to renewables and insulating homes – both pledges by this new government - will.
To get the transition right, Labour in Westminster must work constructively with Holyrood, trade unions and communities in Scotland to ensure a plan that fairly and properly supports workers. After all, with the basin in decline, new licenses will do nothing to stem the job losses in the industry. Already oil and gas supported jobs have more than halved in the past decade, despite hundreds of new licenses being issued in this period.
As the Conservatives experienced in the general election, the public do not buy the myth that new oil and gas is any kind of solution to ending cold, damp homes, or increasing energy independence, or boosting the economy or jobs. In fact polling by More in Common shows that ditching green policies, and obsessing over maxing out north sea oil and gas, played a key role in the Conservative’s worst election defeat in its parliamentary history.
The UK will continue to extract energy from the North Sea as the basin winds down, but gradually replacing it with more homegrown wind power, off and onshore, and retrofitting our leaky housing stock is the only path to a permanently fairer energy system that benefits everyone. Given millions are in energy debt and bills are 50 percent more than they were three years ago this is where our focus should be.
Oil and gas industry bosses, and their cheerleaders, will inevitably complain - they do after all benefit the most from the status quo - we should remember that Britain just voted for change not more of the same rip off energy system where oil and gas companies walk off with massive profits and we’re all left with higher bills, declining jobs, diminishing communities and a worsening climate crisis. Building a fairer energy system will take time, and hard graft, but it is heartening that this mission has begun.
