𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Kemi Badenoch has committed the Tories to extract as much oil and gas as possible from the North Sea.

The Conservative Party leader said it was “absurd” to leave the fossil fuel resources untapped.

But the Government said issuing new licences for oil and gas exploration would “not take a penny off bills” and would accelerate the “worsening climate crisis”.

A Conservative government would make “maximising extraction” its goal if it wins power, rather than measures aimed at shifting the North Sea industry away from fossil fuels.

Mrs Badenoch will use a speech in Aberdeen on Tuesday to set out her plans.

She will announce that the Tories plan to completely overhaul the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which oversees the issuing of licences, dropping the word transition and giving it a simple order to extract the maximum possible amount of fossil fuels.

Ahead of her speech, Mrs Badenoch pledged that “we are going to get all our oil and gas out of the North Sea”.

She said: “We are in the absurd situation where our country is leaving vital resources untapped while neighbours such as Norway extract them from the same seabed.

“With the ONS (Office for National Statistics) confirming that economic growth is down partly because of falling oil and gas extraction, we cannot afford not to be doing everything to get hydrocarbons out the ground.

“Britain has already decarbonised more than every other major economy since 1990, yet we face some of the highest energy prices in the developed world.

“This is not sustainable and it cannot continue. That is why I am calling time on this unilateral act of economic disarmament and Labour’s impossible ideology of net zero by 2050.

“Russia’s war in Ukraine has only underscored that our energy supplies are a matter of national security.”

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: “We are already delivering a fair and orderly transition in the North Sea to drive growth and secure skilled jobs for future generations, with the biggest ever investment in offshore wind and three first of a kind carbon capture and storage clusters.

“We are committed to delivering the manifesto commitment to not issue new licences to explore new fields because they will not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure, and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis.”