North Sea Oil Fight Escalates As Starmer Cites Legal Limits

Authored by Mauricio Alencar via City A.M.,

Sir Keir Starmer has said he doesn’t hold legal powers to approve fresh exploration of North Sea oil and gas fields, with the decision falling in the hands of net zero secretary Ed Miliband.

Starmer said current legislation determined that a quasi-judicial decision relating to cases for more gas extraction at Shell’s Jackdaw site and Equinor’s Rosebank oil field was left to Miliband.

The Prime Minister reiterated the government’s commitment to expanding renewable energy. He said the introduction of fresh legislation would “slow the process down” and accused the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, of failing to know about the law before raising questions in Parliament. 

“Its absolutely clear that the quasi judicial [process] lies with secretary of state,” Starmer said. 

“In the last four weeks, because we are on a fossil fuel rollercoaster, everyone is being held to ransom.”

He added: “The most important thing to get energy security is to make sure we de-escalate the war.”

Starmer backed by Davey

Scottish courts ruled government approvals for more extraction at each field as unlawful on environmental grounds.

The power now falls on the energy secretary to make a decision while considering economic and environmental reasons for projects.

Badenoch accused Starmer of “hiding behind legal process every time” though Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who served as the energy secretary in the coalition government, said he agreed with the Prime Minister. 

The Tory leader heckled Davey to “stop sucking up”. She also shouted out “you can change the law” and repeated the word “weak” several times. 

Starmer is facing growing pressure to remove restrictions on North Sea oil and gas projects from officials working across clean energy.

Jurgen Maier, who oversees Great British Energy, the publicly owned investment company, said in a post on LinkedIn that more drilling in the region would support a “managed energy transition”, slow job losses and improve tax receipts.

However, he said that energy costs would not be brought down and later emphasised he was “fully supportive” of the government’s position to use existing fields for further exploration.

Prime Minister’s Questions also came just a day after the lobby group Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) called on the government to “urgently” allow new drilling projects to take place. 

Its annual report said much as half of the UK’s liquified natural gas (LNG) will come from international suppliers by 2035. 

David Whitehouse, chief executive of OEUK, said:

“As demand rises and electricity use accelerates, weakening domestic supply would only increase our reliance on imported LNG, leaving consumers more exposed to global volatility and higher emissions.”