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1. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will now make a statement on the offshore Jackdaw gasfield and the Government’s approach more broadly to North sea oil and gas. This supplements the written ministerial statement that I made to the House on the topic earlier this morning. The original grant of consent for the Jackdaw project, made in 2022 under the previous Government, was judged to be unlawful and was quashed by the courts. This was because emissions from the burning of extracted gas were not considered, and it therefore did not assess the full environmental impacts of the project. My right hon. Friend the Energy Secretary and the regulator have now retaken the relevant decisions, fully taking into account environmental impacts. Today, I can inform the House that the Energy Secretary has decided in favour of the project and that the regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority, has now granted consent for gas to be produced at the licensed Jackdaw field. Given that the court permitted the developer to continue development at risk until a new consenting decision was made, the project will therefore start to supply gas to British homes and businesses by as soon as the end of this month. In reaching her decision, the Energy Secretary considered all relevant information in the round. She looked at the project’s expected benefits to the UK, including its contribution to energy security, employment, impacts on other energy infrastructure and other economic benefits, and carefully weighed them against the potential environmental effects, including the effects relating to greenhouse gas emissions. The full reasons for our decisions are set out in detail in the decision document, which was published on gov.uk. I want to assure the House that the Government remain committed to tackling the climate crisis and to moving away from fossil fuels and towards renewable and nuclear energy. The recent heatwaves and weather events we have seen demonstrate why that is critical, and the Secretary of State will be leading the UK delegation to COP next month to drive global action and build a credible pathway back to 1.5° of warming. I want to be clear that this project will not prevent the UK from being able to meet its legally binding limits on carbon emissions and achieve net zero by 2050. But even on the path to net zero, the UK will still require oil and gas as part of our energy needs for decades to come. This decision is consistent with the Government’s manifesto commitments to end new licences, explore new fields and support the management of existing fields for their lifespan. The Chancellor and the Energy Secretary have also announced that the Government will establish a new North sea energy wealth fund, which will use tax revenues from North sea oil and gas to invest in net zero projects and support the green transition. This will start with an initial £2 billion capital injection of funding, with future revenues from the North sea flowing into the fund over time. It will support our plans to delink gas and electricity over the course of the Parliament, ensuring that home-grown renewables and low-carbon power set the price of electricity far more than gas, helping to protect households and businesses from volatile fossil fuel markets and bring down bills for good. The North sea future plan set out our approach to securing a managed, orderly and prosperous transition and set out how we will deliver our manifesto commitment to support the management of existing fields by introducing transitional energy certificates, and we will legislate for those reforms when parliamentary time allows. However, a small number of tieback projects face urgent investment and operational decisions now, and I have therefore asked the North Sea Transition Authority to consider whether any such projects could benefit from similar measures now, before the legislation is in place. This is a limited interim arrangement for urgent cases where operators can demonstrate committed investment, credible delivery plans and near-term activity. Any decision will remain for the NSTA, in accordance with its statutory responsibilities. Timely decommissioning is important for both the environment and the economy, and this Government are keen to unblock and progress decisions in a timely way. I can also announce today that the regulator has invited the decommissioning programme for the Brent installations, marking an important step in restarting another regulatory process that has been on hold for years. My officials are also beginning discussions with industry leaders on a refresh of the North sea transition deal to ensure that future domestic oil and gas production continues to benefit the UK and to build the energy industries of the future. First agreed in 2021, the deal aims to provide a clear path for the industry to support the UK in reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, while protecting jobs and supporting energy security. Finally, as the Prime Minister said a few moments ago, we are looking at removing standing charges on gas bills at the earliest opportunity. Today’s decision means that we will get more power flowing directly into British homes and businesses this winter as we continue our transition to renewables. I commend this statement to the House.

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2. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   In the two and a half years that the hon. Gentleman says that he has had to think about this, he might have come up with something better than that performance. The Conservatives’ lack of contrition for a decision that was quashed by a court is absolutely shameful. I reiterate that the Court was very clear in its judgment that while the decision did not stand, the project could continue to be developed, so there has been no delay in its development; that is why extraction from the Jackdaw field can continue. The hon. Gentleman talked about dither and delay. That brings me to the truth of this, which is that the Conservative party left Britain with an energy system that was less secure, more exposed to international shocks and slower to invest than it should have been. I watched the Conservative party conference in great detail, and I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman seems to be shifting his party’s position back to what it was before the previous shadow Secretary of State’s time, and is supporting more renewables. I really welcome that, and I look forward to working with him to make that a success, because we agree on that. This decision is important for our energy security and jobs, but the long-term pathway for Britain is towards not fossil fuels, but building the clean power system that we need, electrifying the economy, and building the nuclear that the hon. Gentleman claims to care so much about, although he did not build any in his two years as Nuclear Minister, due to dither and delay. We fell behind as a country on the energy security that we needed. This decision is part of our response to energy crises. To have a secure long-term future, we must build up the industries that come next. That is important for Britain’s energy security, jobs, and opportunities in his constituency and right across the country. That is what this Government will get on and do.

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3. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   I agree with my hon. Friend about the transition. The vast majority of jobs in the oil and gas industry are in the very supply chains that we need to build the renewables and networks of the future, so it is important that we hold on to those; that is a huge opportunity. Pragmatism has to go both ways. We have to be pragmatic about oil and gas in the North sea, but it would be irresponsible not to make the investment needed in clean power and the long-term future of jobs. We are seeking to do both. We will make sure that the transition is managed, by investing the revenues from this gas project—that is £2 billion initially, but additional revenues will flow into it—and will invest in the clean power projects that will help us to get off fossil fuels in the long term, while retaining the critical workforce in the UK.

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4. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   I am genuinely confused about the Lib Dems’ position, because my understanding was that they were now in favour of the Jackdaw field. Maybe that will change again by the end of the day. I hear the point that she makes. We are not waiting for a tipping point. We have been getting on with electrification and building the clean power mission for the past two and a half years. I would gently say to the Lib Dems that there were 10 sites for new nuclear projects in 2009. After Labour left office in 2010, the leader of the Liberal Democrats was Energy Minister for a period in which no new nuclear, which would have helped us, was built. I agree with the hon. Lady’s point about climate. In making the decision, all those factors had to be weighed up. The full decision notice is available, and it goes into this in great detail, but the Secretary of State was very clear that her assessment is that the decision does not prevent the UK from meeting legally binding limits on carbon emissions, or from achieving our net zero target. A managed transition recognises that moving to a low-carbon economy will involve balancing climate objectives, the deployment of clean power and the electrification of heat and industry with ensuring energy security in the short term, in which we will be required to use oil and gas across our economy. This is about doing both, and getting us to the end point as quickly as possible.

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5. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   I agree with my hon. Friend about the absolute priority. He is absolutely right to say that this decision will not take a penny off bills. We have been consistent on that throughout. We are a price taker as a country, and no number of consenting decisions will change the fact that gas is traded on the international market and the decision is of marginal impact on the overall price; it does not have an impact on that. Nevertheless, the gas resulting from this decision will account for around 5% of domestic gas production, so the decision is important from a security point of view. My hon. Friend’s wider point is about how we move many more people over to electricity and then bring down the cost of electricity. We are doing all we can to break the link with gas; that is absolutely critical. Electricity bills have gone up in the last two price caps because of our exposure to fossil fuels. That is affected by a war thousands of miles away that we had no part in. We are already making progress. A few years ago, 90% of the electricity price was set by gas. The figure is now 60%, and is going down all the time, but we have much more to do on that. Evidence from the past few months has shown that the people who are being supported to take up heat pumps or solar panels are off-grid households, which face the impact of heating oil prices. They have taken up those opportunities. The public are behind us on this; we just need to make it as straightforward as possible. That is what the warm homes plan will deliver.

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6. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As a fellow by-election MP, I can agree with the hon. Member that we need to dine out on our by-elections as much as we can; he was quite right to raise that. The hon. Member is right about the process. I will not comment on timelines for upcoming decisions, but over the past two years, we have put in place a process to allow consideration of scope 3 emissions and consultation on that, and then to get the consenting decisions back into the process. That has all now been done, so now, the process will be just consideration of individual applications, rather than us having to go through all that again. Obviously, there is consideration to be given to upcoming consenting decisions. That consideration will be based on the evidence submitted, and not an artificial timeline. The hon. Member talked about common sense. It is really important to make this point. The common-sense, pragmatic position for the future of the north-east of Scotland is to say, as I do, that oil and gas will continue to be important for a long time—I have been in Aberdeen often enough to know how important it is to the jobs there—but that must go hand in hand with us investing as much as we can in the long-term industries that will create jobs there. That is why I talked about decommissioning in my statement; there is a huge opportunity there for jobs and the supply chain in the north-east. I hope that we can get a bit more cross-party consensus, maybe not on everything to do with oil and gas, but on the need to invest in supply chains and industry, so that we can build the renewables of the future.

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7. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   I love my appearances before the Select Committee; I gently point out that other Ministers in the Department would love to come and give evidence as well. Nevertheless, I am happy to do so, and I always appreciate the conversations. My hon. Friend is right. We moved as quickly as we could to put in place the process that responded to the Supreme Court judgment on Finch and the Court of Session judgment on these applications. We have done that, and we considered all the evidence to make this decision today. Whatever people’s views, the critical thing is that the decision can stand on its merits, and it was is right and proper that we took the time to get this right. My hon. Friend’s broader point was right. The real prize of the energy transition, if we get it right, is tackling the climate crisis while creating jobs in every single part of the country. We have to do both. She is a fantastic champion of her community and of this industry. If we get this right, we will create the next generation of good, sustainable jobs for young people growing up today. They will not have a long-term career in oil and gas, but could have a good, long-term career in renewables, carbon capture, hydrogen and other areas. I hope that we can work together to make that a reality.

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8. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   indicated dissent.

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9. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

   Jackdaw Gasfield

   Just to be clear, I said that there was no time delay because the projects were not ready to extract in any event. It is for the developer to speak to the details, but my understanding is that the Rosebank project is not ready to extract now, either. My point was that, although we had to retake the decisions made by the previous Government that were quashed by a court, the developer was allowed to continue the development of the project at its risk. That means that, now it has the consent, it is ready to extract by the end of this month. The Rosebank project is obviously subject to a separate regulatory process, which I will not comment on just now.

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10. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    My hon. Friend’s point about postcodes is really important for us. I hope that through the transition we can collectively get to a similar place, where there is not a single postcode in the country that does not have jobs associated with clean energy. That is our aim in driving forward the supply chain investment and everything else. My hon. Friend is right to centre the whole conversation on the workers. For 60 years, workers have done incredibly difficult and dangerous work in the North sea to bring energy ashore. I pay tribute to all of them, some of whom lost their lives in that process. It is our duty to ensure that there is a long-term legacy for that workforce in oil and gas, in decommissioning and in other technologies that we need to invest in now. That is the prize if we get it right—but, frankly, it is also our responsibility to that workforce now and the workforce of the future.

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11. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I am sorry; I am hurriedly trying to work out what the Lib Dems’ position is. I am sure that I will have clarity at some point. On the point about jobs—these are the developer’s figures—there are 27 direct jobs from the project, but it is also about safeguarding 273 existing jobs. It is actually about something much broader than that: it is about an industry that is in transition, and we have to do what we can to protect that industry while we build what comes next. I have been clear on that throughout my time as Energy Minister. I gently say that we should accept that the wider economic impact of jobs does go down to the person buying a sandwich in the shop. When we see big industry leave towns—I am a Lanarkshire MP, and I know the impact of coalmine closures and steel closures in my constituency—we do see those small businesses leave and, with them, the important jobs that a community relies on. I do not think we should talk down the importance of the wider economic impact of this decision.

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12. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I give my hon. Friend that assurance. The amount of gas that will come onshore into our UK supply is about 5% of our production—6% at the peak. We have a diverse range of suppliers from the UK continental shelf, from Norway and from LNG imports. This decision will not change the fact that the country became a net importer of fossil fuels 20 years ago, but it does play a part in the security of supply. That was part of the balancing act against the environmental considerations that my hon. Friend rightly notes. As I have said before, the determination made by the Secretary of State is that we are able to do that while meeting the climate objectives. I absolutely give my hon. Friend the assurance that the decision does not move us away at all from those commitments; in fact, the £2 billion committed from the revenues will help us turbocharge the investment in clean energy.

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13. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    The hon. Lady speaks about 50 years; I am not quite sure what the SNP’s energy policy is right now. It changes from minute to minute, and it changes depending on whether the First Minister is in Aberdeen or somewhere else in the country. I cannot quite fathom it. The Scottish Government put out a statement today, which I read three or four times, and I still was not clear whether they support Jackdaw or not. The hon. Lady is a good supporter of the industry and I recognise that, but as for the rest of her party, I am not quite so sure. The point about investment in renewables is important. We have been clear that the revenue from this project will be invested in renewables projects across the UK. For the vast majority of those, we are already seeing the investment going into Scotland, in supply chains as well as in the infrastructure itself. It is easy for the hon. Lady to talk down Great British Energy, but its headquarters in Aberdeen is already helping to deliver investment in supply chains in Scotland. That is £1 billion of investment so that we are not towing in renewables infrastructure to the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”, as the former leader of her party called it, that is all built somewhere else, but building it in Britain. That is where the jobs come from. That is really important, and I hope we can all get behind this idea. I thought the hon. Lady’s party agreed that public ownership of energy is important, that public investment in energy is important and that the transition needs investment at every stage, so I hope that there are clearer areas for us to work together. However, as I say, we are still waiting on the SNP’s energy policy three years on, so I am not quite sure what it is at the moment.

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14. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I will always agree about high-quality jobs in Lanarkshire. It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency to see the opening of the RES facility in Bellshill. It is an important example of a part of his constituency that will not have renewables projects directly deployed, but which can still get the jobs from the operations and maintenance of wind farms across Scotland, along with the jobs and apprenticeships being created as a result. The jobs that go along with the energy transition are at the heart of the Government’s agenda to deliver reindustrialisation and growth in every postcode. For too long, Governments have been agnostic about where we build things and we have seen manufacturing capacity depleted in communities such as my hon. Friend’s and others right across the country. We are seeking to reverse that with the investments we are making and to get good jobs in every single part of the country.

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15. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I said in my statement that in the transition to clean energy, we will continue to need oil and gas. The UK continental shelf continues to be an important source of that, but we have been a net importer for more than two decades and no amount of consenting decisions will change that fact. It is important, however, and I have said that that 6% of production matters. That is why we have made the decision we have made today. The important thing about pragmatism—I have said this a number of times—is that it has to work both ways. We previously had a consensus that oil and gas and renewables went hand in hand, in the transition to what comes next. The Conservatives built lots of renewables and now dismiss the fact that they are important to the system. I welcome the investment the previous Government made in renewables; it is just a shame that they have lost their way so much that they do not support it now.

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16. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    My hon. Friend is a great champion for making sure that the transition has workers at its heart, both in his constituency and across Scotland. The developer estimates that there will be 27 direct jobs on the project, which is all that we are able to take into account with regard to the decision that I can talk about today. Of course, a significant number of jobs in oil and gas come from the wider impacts on the supply chain—things such as travel to and from offshore rigs and wider jobs in the north-east of Scotland—and jobs that might otherwise have been lost are also safeguarded. It is important to look at both sides. On the question of jobs, I have always been really clear that we cannot just look at one side of a balance sheet and the jobs being lost. Energy transition means people moving from one part of an industry to another. We should not just look at jobs being lost in one area without following through to where those jobs end up, whether it is in other parts of the energy industry, in nuclear, in defence or in advanced manufacturing. One of the things we will launch soon is the future jobs service, which will support workers all the way through that process, giving them the necessary retraining so they can take up the opportunities in the future. That is how we will keep the workforce delivering in energy in Scotland.

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17. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    No, that is where we fundamentally disagree. We agree on the need to tackle the climate crisis, but our response has to be based in reality. The reality is that however much I want us to be able to get off fossil fuels tomorrow, that is not going to happen. We have to build the infrastructure that helps us get to that place. I am afraid that the Greens oppose the very infrastructure—they oppose wind farms, they oppose pylons, they oppose solar farms, they oppose nuclear—that gets us off fossil fuels, then they come here and complain that we are reliant on fossil fuels for longer than we have to be. They are the problem in building the transition that we need. I am glad to see the hon. Lady, because the Greens very rarely turn up to energy debates in this House. Across the country, so-called Green politicians have stopped renewable energy projects getting off the ground. It is always, “Not here, somewhere else,” or, “Not today, some other time.” The time to build is now and they have to get behind it if they want us to get off fossil fuels.

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18. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I had a great visit to my hon. Friend’s constituency recently to see the importance of solar panels in a project there. We need to see much more of that investment, because our energy sovereignty in the long term comes from us being able to produce the energy we need here in the UK. That means electrifying the economy and generating that electricity through a decarbonised power system, but the transition to get there, not least on heat and in industry, will still require gas for a long time to come—we, as a Government, have been clear on that from the beginning. We are not about turning off the taps in the North sea, so our energy security has to take both those directions at the same time: building the industry we need for the future now while ensuring that we have the supply we need for the here and now. The Government are focused on both.

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19. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    The hon. Gentleman is a great champion of the industry, and I know that he does a huge amount on this. I agree with him entirely: geothermal is a huge opportunity and I know that there are projects starting to come much closer to delivery. We want to see much more of that, and I recognise there is more we need to do. I do not want to get into discussions on ringfences within the fund, because the danger is that that could hold back the money from projects that are ready to deploy, but I am certainly happy to speak to him about other projects and what more we can do.

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20. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    It is good to hear from the MP for my old home—he is my mother’s MP and a great champion for Ayrshire. Ayrshire has a critical role, and it could have an even more important role if we were to build new nuclear at Hunterston, which, if it were not for the objections of the SNP, we could be looking at much more seriously. He is right to point to the fact that there are huge opportunities around supply chain jobs. We have had a meeting at a port in his constituency to talk about the opportunities there. The real drive behind this is the clean energy transition for our energy security, but reindustrialisation off the back of that will create good jobs in every single part of the country. We need to dispel the idea that we cannot manufacture things in Britain and actually get back to building things in every single part of the country.

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21. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    The hon. Gentleman talks about needing to have set up wealth funds a long time ago. I probably would not disagree with him on much of that, but I would just point out that the Scottish Government have the ScotWind fund, which they are currently drawing down to meet the deficit in their own spending. That is not building a legacy for the future; it is using it to paper over the cracks in the fiscal competence of the SNP Government. The hon. Gentleman might welcome this decision, but I am genuinely still not sure what the SNP’s position is more generally. Nevertheless, I welcome his support for it. The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the Acorn project. He and I have had useful conversations about it, and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), who is next to me on the Front Bench, is the Minister responsible for carbon capture, usage and storage now. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, a sales process is now going through, and we continue to be very supportive of that process. We have set aside funding to support the project. The hon. Gentleman is also right to flag the question of approvals for projects. Some of that sits with us, but most of it at the moment is involved in a bottleneck on consenting decisions, which are the responsibility of the Scottish Government. I know I have done a bit of point scoring here, but in line with the problem solving driver for this Government, I would just say that I have a really good relationship with Stephen Gethins, the Scottish Government Energy Minister. We are working together on a lot of these things, but we need to get the consenting decisions made much more quickly so that projects can get out and get built.

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22. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I agree with my hon. Friend. I have visited Torness and met the incredibly skilled workforce there. What I find difficult about the Scottish Government’s position on jobs in Scotland is that they are willing to completely turn their back on the skilled workers in nuclear power, who are going searching for jobs in nuclear projects in England or elsewhere, rather than supporting and nurturing those jobs in Scotland today. Never mind the fact that every single day of the week, Scotland’s energy security relies on the firm nuclear power coming out of Torness nuclear power station. We have to remove that ideological block, which is just an anti-science approach to technology. That will help us to get off fossil fuels and deliver clean power and incredibly good, well-paid jobs in Scotland, and I really hope the SNP will change its position.

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23. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I am tempted to say that it is certainly not a question for me, but I will answer the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. To be really clear, we came into Government with a judgment by the Court of Session that quashed the decisions, which required us then to put in place a process that considered the scope 3 emissions as part of a consenting regime. We had to design that process, consult on it with industry, get to a place where it was a practical process and then consider the applications. We have done that, and we have done it as quickly as we possibly could.

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24. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    The pathway to net zero by 2050 has to accommodate the fact that we will require oil and gas, one way or another, while we are in that transition. The choices open to the Government are to continue extraction from the North sea, which we will do with existing fuels and existing consented fields, or to import from other places. We are obviously importing from Norway, which has generally cleaner imports than anywhere else, but we also rely on LNG imports, which have a higher carbon intensity. The decision therefore involves a balancing act on how we deal with the requirement for oil and gas from different places, and the Secretary of State’s decision has been made after weighing up all the evidence on the fact that we are able to make this consenting decision within the boundaries of our legally set carbon budgets.

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25. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    It is a great pleasure to see the hon. Gentleman back and looking so well. He is genuinely an hon. Gentleman and it is always a pleasure to speak with him. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I suspect that there are lots of things that he could bring to this House from his long and experienced life. He is also a great champion of nuclear and the difference that made in his constituency, and I agree with him on this. It is helpful, of course, that he has taken the line much more closely of the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey)—I have done some research—who said: “Jackdaw, I personally have always felt made sense because we’re going to need a lot of gas in the transition.” So I think the Lib Dem position is actually to support today’s decision.

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26. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    Let me say to my hon. Friend, as I have said to him repeatedly, we regret the process that was underway when we came into government and the lack of planning for the workforce in his constituency. Contrary to what he says, we have in fact invested a significant amount of money in supporting that workforce to find alternative employment, and we are continuing to spend money on developing the projects that will take advantage of the £200 million from the National Wealth Fund. Unfortunately, I cannot magic those projects up out of thin air, so we are doing everything we possibly can to support them. We have set up Great British Energy as a publicly owned energy company. It is already investing in supply chains, in supporting the North sea transition, and in investing and taking a stake in the projects that we are supporting across the energy space and that will bring jobs to his constituency and across the country. I hope he will get behind some of the initiatives that the Government are driving forward.

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27. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I am certain that the Prime Minister did not say that, because the truth is that although this decision is important for energy security reasons, it will do nothing to bring down prices. Prices are set on an international market, and no amount of extraction from the UK shelf will change the price—those are just the facts of the matter. It is important we do this. I say to the hon. Member and his party that we have never been a “turn off the taps” party in the North sea, but his party is for drilling for every last drop and ignoring the tens of thousands of jobs, in constituencies that it represents, that are currently relying on offshore wind and other technologies. He would turn his back on all those jobs, and it is absolutely shameful that his party would leave this country not more energy secure, but vulnerable at the very moment we should be building up our energy sovereignty.

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28. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    My hon. Friend is right on his point about jobs, although I reiterate that direct jobs are often not the whole story with such projects, as there is a whole ecosystem around jobs. Skills is one of the most important things, and it is an area devolved to the Scottish Government. We have had a good partnership working on a lot of the transition support for workers. We have joint funded projects for North sea workers and will continue to do that because it is important that we match together the UK Government’s responsibilities with the Scottish Government’s responsibilities. Clearly, there is, however, a real issue in Scotland with the hollowing out of further education, which is the route for many of the skilled jobs we need in our economy, not least building the transmission system of the future, which needs highly skilled welders more than anything else. We need apprenticeships and further education, and I hope that the Scottish Government will invest even more in colleges across the country.

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29. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I can give the hon. Member that assurance, but she does not need to wait on the new wealth fund; we have already committed funding to doing that. We published the North sea future plan, which charts a course for the future of the North sea, focused on not only oil and gas but the industries that come next and with the workers right at the centre of it. It is focused on how we provide the training support so that we can recognise the huge read-across from oil and gas skills into a lot of the other energy jobs and into defence and advanced manufacturing. We need to deploy those skills so that we can support workers the whole way through that process. We are already getting on with delivering it, and the North sea future jobs service should launch early next year.

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30. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    Both are important questions. First, I recognise the point my hon. Friend makes around energy independence. We do require gas in the system at the moment, so this decision is partly around how we increase domestic production. But the long-term energy security and our energy independence do not come from oil and gas, which we will always be a net importer of at this point on, and so we have to build a way to get us off that fossil fuel rollercoaster in the future. Secondly, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that off-gas-grid households have felt the significant impact of the war in the middle east as heating oil prices have skyrocketed. We very quickly put in place a fund to provide support for those households—much quicker than the previous Government did when Russia invaded Ukraine. I encourage all his constituents to ensure they have accessed that fund as people will be starting to refill tanks at this time of year, but we are also doing as much as we can to support, through the warm homes plan, the decarbonisation of those households who, of course, have access to the electricity grid and so can take advantage of solar panels, batteries and heat pumps, and we will say more about that in due course.

    Hansard source
31. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    It is a well-timed question because I am joining the hon. Lady in her constituency tomorrow to speak to some of the supply chain businesses that will help build the Gwyndod power station and to visit the site where Gwyndod will be built. It is an important example of where the last generation of nuclear power can turn into the next generation of apprentices in this new power station, with the grandchildren of people who worked at the Wylfa power station before. It is a huge opportunity, and I want to work with her and the Welsh Government on ensuring that we get as much economic opportunity from the Gwyndod project as possible with the supply chain jobs in her constituency and across Wales.

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32. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I agree with what my hon. Friend says about the importance of investing in renewables. On his broader question about consenting decisions, every single individual application is considered on its own merits, with its own evidence base and its own consultation process. The Rosebank decision is separate from the Jackdaw decision. We have concluded the evidence stage and the Secretary of State will make a decision in due course.

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33. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I agree with the hon. Lady absolutely that we are in a climate emergency. We all lived through a summer that demonstrated that more than anything we have seen. I have heard many people say it was the warmest summer on record, but in the future it will probably be seen to have been one of the coldest summers. We have to do something about that. I am fed up with hearing people say that we should just work on adaptation. We do have to work on adaptation, but we also have to do everything that we possibly can to stop the situation from becoming worse. That is why we are doing all that we can on an international level and why we are building renewables as quickly as possible. I agree with her that the cheapest energy for homeowners is the energy that they do not use, and that the more we can do to upgrade our homes in this country the better. That is what the warm homes plan is all about. By devolving it to local areas, they can make their own local choices about what works for them.

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34. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I will not comment on future decisions, but the decision I am outlining today is clearly taking into consideration environmental impact, and all other decisions will do likewise. The Labour party has a proud record of passing the Climate Change Act 2008 and setting world-leading targets. For those who say that Britain should shrink from the world stage, those decisions have been hugely important for driving the transition to clean power in countries across the world. We are not alone in doing this and we have to do that even more. With consensus across the political divide, we cut emissions enormously. I was there at the closure of our last coal power station. We have made great progress, but there is a huge amount more to do to ensure we break the link with gas, to bring down people’s bills and to tackle the climate emergency, which is no longer some future threat but an ever-present reality.

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35. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    We have heard loud and clear that the standing charge is the most frustrating part of the bill for people, because it is not driven by the individual choices they make about energy use but by a fixed price on the bill. The challenge with gas in particular is that we want people to use less, but there is little incentive to do that if the standing charge remains the same. I do not pretend it will be easy: the standing charge still has costs that have to be paid for and the gas network still has to be funded, but the Prime Minister has committed to working through how we can make the standing charge fairer and encourage people to make decarbonisation choices for affordability reasons. That is important for all of us and, crucially, it will bring down people’s bills.

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36. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I hear what my hon. Friend says. On her last point, we are absolutely seized of the fact that the wildfires and the impact that heatwaves have had on people’s lives is evidence enough, if anyone ever needed it—I know she certainly does not because she has been a champion on this issue for a long time—that we have to take firm action on tackling climate change. That requires us to design a pathway to get to net zero that recognises the fact that we will need oil and gas as part of that transition, and that there are lower emissions coming out of the North sea than otherwise, but balancing that against significant investment, which must be made as quickly as possible, in renewables, nuclear and other technologies that help us get off the fossil fuels on which we are currently dependent. That is the only long-term pathway to energy security and to tackling the climate crisis, and we are doing everything we can to get there as quickly as possible.

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37. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I think the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will be very surprised when they reach to turn on their heating or their gas cooker that they do not rely on gas—a significant number of his constituents will rely on gas. We want to get off that gas supply as quickly as possible, but we will continue to require it for a number of years, so I hope that he can recognise why the decision is important for energy security. I agree with him about the fundamental point: contrary to any other noise around this, no new oil and gas drilling will ever take a penny off bills. It does not impact bills. It brings in tax revenue to the Government that we will invest in the clean energy that gets us off fossil fuels. Breaking the link with gas will bring down his constituents’ bills, but I agree that it will not directly reduce bills.

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38. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and any other hon. Members from across the House who have experience that they want to raise or ideas about how we can do this. I chair the North sea future board, which has trade unions at its heart to bring the story of workers to the heart of the decisions we are making, not just because we owe that to those workers, who are powering the country right now and have done for decades, but because they are the critical workforce that will help us build what we need in the future. He is right to point to failed transitions—we will all have experience of that in our communities, but some more than others. There is a lesson from history that if Government do not actively engage in building the next part of the transition, we will not support those workers. We are doing everything that we can on that, but there is a lot more that we can do and I am happy to work with him on it.

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39. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    The hon. Lady is right to point to that fact. We have renewables in the system, but we are not getting the benefit of the pricing, because the last margin unit that we need in order to meet our supply is often gas. That used to be 90% of the time, but it is now less than 60% of the time. We are making huge progress; since the closure of the strait of Hormuz, we have been saving £50 million or more a day on displaced gas costs, because of the renewables that we have built. We are going as fast as we can, but I cannot just pull a lever and make decoupling happen, because the marginal price setting is important to ensure that we can meet our supply every single day. We are doing everything that we can on that issue. It is a No. 1 priority to ensure that people feel the benefit of clean power coming through on to their bills.

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40. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Michael Shanks

    Jackdaw Gasfield

    I will say two things. First, we are absolutely clear that tackling the climate crisis is an absolute priority for the Government. It is vital for our national security, our energy security and our children’s futures, and we need to do even more. This decision is about the transition period, in which we will need oil and gas to build into where we go next, but that is not the whole story. The absolute clear direction from this Government is that in order to tackle the climate crisis, we have to break the link with fossil fuels so that we are not importing from other countries and driving up climate problems for future generations to deal with, but have home-grown, clean energy here in the UK. We are already making enormous progress on that. People should rightly feel that the Government have to do more, but one of the really important things to recognise is that we are making progress in climate action. We always need to do more, but people should not feel that there is absolutely no route out for us. If we can work together and build some more consensus, we can tackle climate change.

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