Ed Miliband will destroy our North Sea industry we’ll rely on imports | Politics | News
Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho will try and force the Government to greenlight drilling (Image: Getty)
This week’s King’s Speech was an exercise in Orwellian double-speak. The Labour Government announced its plans for an Energy Independence Bill which will wilfully shut down our oil and gas industry in the North Sea. It will send thousands of hardworking Britons’ jobs to places like Qatar, Russia, China and the US – because we won’t need any less oil and gas, we will now just be forced to rely more on higher-emission imports from foreign regimes.
Only someone as deluded as Ed Miliband could come up with an Energy Independence Bill which makes us weaker, poorer and more dependent on the whims of foreign regimes for our energy supply.
The Conservatives are clear. We have to back the North Sea for our energy security. In Government I signed off on the Rosebank field and I was passing a new law to require licensing rounds for new fields every year. My argument has always been the same – backing the North Sea means more tax revenue, more energy security, more jobs, and more growth.
We need to stop demonising necessary, productive parts of our economy and driving them into oblivion with endless meddling, bans and taxes.
Experts say we will lose out on £25billion in North Sea tax revenue over the next decade because of Labour’s plans. We could use that money to cut taxes and ease pressure on families struggling with their bills.
Sadly, Ed Miliband – the man who wants to be our next Chancellor – is quite literally choosing to leave billions of pounds in the ground and squeeze more tax out of working Brits so we can pay other countries for the energy that we could produce here ourselves.
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Where is the sense in shutting down our own production in the North Sea, only to increase imports from Norway, who are drilling from exactly the same fields in the North Sea that we refuse to drill?
It’s not just our oil and gas sector which is under stress. The war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz means we may face shortages in refined products like jet fuel in the coming months.
Last year we lost a third of our refineries, and because of Labour’s soaring Carbon Taxes we may lose our final four. A similar story is happening in chemicals, glass and ceramics. We have to reject the idea that we can decarbonise by deindustrialising.
Why are Labour signing up to this rubbish? Well, Ed is pretty explicit. In his view, this bill is “climate leadership”. But if your plan means lower growth, fewer jobs, reduced tax revenue and more dependence on foreign imports, then who exactly is going to follow your lead?
That’s why we have committed to fixing the problems from our party’s past. Under Kemi’s and my leadership, we will repeal the Climate Change Act and put cheap energy first.
We are the only party to have a fully funded plan to axe the Carbon Tax to save British industry. We need to double down on secure and reliable nuclear power which can keep the lights on all year round. And lastly, we need to cut the taxes and levies sitting on people’s bills to make electricity cheap. Making electricity cheap so people want to use electric cars and heating without being taxed or forced into it will be much better for the environment overall.
Labour is acquiescing to the demands of anti-frackers (Image: Getty Images)
Our Cheap Power Plan would cut everyone’s household energy bills by £200 and business electricity bills by 20%. Labour could do this today if they wanted to and it would make all of us better off. Cheap electricity is needed for the industries of the future like AI, and it will make life easier for millions of households and businesses too.
All political parties will continue to fail unless they do the hard yards of rewiring the state so it can actually deliver what the public wants.
Next week we will give MPs a choice. The Conservatives will table an amendment to the King’s Speech to back our own energy resources in the North Sea and approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas field applications that have been sat on Ed Miliband’s desk for months.
Rather than the student politics of Ed Miliband, we must axe the Carbon Tax, repeal the Climate Change Act, double down on nuclear and make electricity cheap. That’s what true energy independence looks like.
