UK's future 'does not lie in more oil and gas', says energy minister

The UK’s future “does not lie in more oil and gas”, energy minister Michael Shanks has told the Commons, days after a judge upheld a legal challenge by environmental campaigners against the decision to grant consent for two new fields in the North Sea.

John Slinger, the Labour MP for Rugby, asked: “Does the minister agree with me that new oil and gas developments will not give us energy security, as the fossil fuels produced will be sold internationally, they won’t lower bills, and they undermine our climate commitments?”

Mr Shanks told the Commons: “Even if oil and gas is extracted from the continental shelf, it is sold on the international markets and, of course, the companies that extract that oil and gas are in the business of trying to make as much of a profit as possible and they will sell to the highest bidder, so it doesn’t protect the prices for consumers right across this country.

“We were clear in our manifesto that we won’t issue new licences for new exploration fields.

“We’ll continue to support those licences that have already been issued but our future doesn’t lie in more oil and gas, our future lies in clean power and that’s what we’re moving at pace to deliver.”

The comments come after approvals of two controversial multi-billion-pound oil and gas fields were quashed.

The highest court in Scotland ruled that government approvals for the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields were unlawful due to their failure to assess the climate impact of downstream emissions.

Environmental groups Greenpeace and Uplift raised legal action at the Court of Session in Edinburgh against the decisions to grant the development and production of the fields.

The ruling means both developments must be reconsidered with full environmental assessments, and no extraction can take place until new assessments that consider the environmental impact of burning fuels extracted are submitted.

Construction for the Rosebank oil field north-west of Shetland and the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen, however, can continue.