Rachel Reeves has said Britain will step up North Sea drilling to combat the energy crisis triggered by the war in Iran as Labour continues to water down its Net Zero commitments. The Telegraph has more.
The Chancellor said she was looking at faster ways to “exploit” the basin’s oil and gas as quickly as possible, as Labour comes under pressure to stop energy bills from spiralling.
Reeves announced plans in November to allow so-called “tie-backs” – new fields adjacent to existing ones.
Speaking at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, she said the Government was looking at speeding up those plans.
She added that “using existing infrastructure to exploit a larger geography” was “the quickest way to bring on stream more oil and gas”.
However, the plans could represent the softening of Labour’s key manifesto pledge not to issue new licences to explore new fields in the North Sea.
Reeves said she was “working through pretty intensely the technical details with the energy companies” to ensure extraction as quickly as possible.
This could risk increasing tensions with Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, who has so far held firm on banning any new drilling in the North Sea.
Reeves said this month that she would be “very happy” to see more oil and gas extraction in the UK.
However, the Chancellor also said she was working closely with Miliband to break the link between gas and electricity prices in an effort to reduce Britain’s exposure to volatile energy prices.
Both oil and gas prices have soared since the conflict in the Middle East began in February, threatening to unleash higher energy bills in the coming months.
“The moment when gas prices spike, we end up paying more for our electricity,” she said, adding that the Government would set out more details in the coming days. …
Yesterday, the Chancellor scrapped the Carbon Price Support levy, a £1 billion Net Zero tax on fossil fuels.
The tax, which was introduced in 2013, was designed to artificially inflate the price of generating electricity from gas and coal to encourage investment into wind and solar.
Such levies have been a key factor in making UK energy bills among the world’s highest, with the Carbon Price Support levy adding around £1.3 billion to bills.
Reeves’s decision to scrap the tax was buried in a Treasury report on a scheme to cut industrial energy costs. Officials admitted that the scheme, which would waive key green levies on the bills of 10,000 factories, would push up bills for other businesses and consumers.
Worth reading in full.
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I see today that government have announced they will give free bus and train travel in this crisis. They won’t reduce tax on fuel but they will use the crisis to try and get us into what is their preferred mode of travel (Busses and Trains)—–Another classic case of “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. Another excuse to get us out of the private car.
But we have been told by the pretend to save the planet left all the time that using more resources from the North Sea will not reduce prices. (Which is FALSE) So why is Reeves now saying the opposite? Probably because they have looked at the polls and realise all of their eco absurdity cannot go on and they cannot live in a pretend to save the world fantasy land forever.
I would not want to run an oil or gas company now. The constant flip flopping on licenses and tax make long term planning and decisions on investment and exploration impossible I would think.
Reeves said she was “working through pretty intensely the technical details with the energy companies” to ensure extraction as quickly as possible.
Why? What does she know about oil extraction and what can she possibly do to ‘assist’ energy companies apart from removing all legal and financial obstructions and leaving them to it?
As far as Starmer is concerned Milliband is the decision-maker but Reeves is making energy announcements abroad?
Obviously Starmer is resigning on 8th May but surely Rachel isn’t pitching to replace him, is she?
I’d guess she’s grabbing whatever positive sounding actions she can right now, so aligning herself at the trough… clearly expects May elections to be a blood bath…
Yesterday, the Chancellor scrapped the Carbon Price Support levy, a £1 billion Net Zero tax on fossil fuels.
But that is a misleading statement not just because it will not apply until 2028 while there is no reason not to do it immediately…or is there. What might be happening in 2028 apart from the next Euros? Ah yes, Two Tier EU cocksucking includes tying us in to their Emissions Trading Scheme, which is currently more than ours and comes into effect in…you guessed already…2028. So in keeping with the lying of this government, the CPS levy will disappear to be replaced by a more expensive ETS.
Cut taxes on one, add it on another’s bill. Forget, or ignore ceramics completely. I wouldn’t trust her to navigate the technicalities of Nando’s menu.
”The Chancellor said she was looking at faster ways to “exploit” the basin’s oil.”
Simples. Reduce the 78% tax on oil companies exploiting NS oil and gas by removing the 19 Carbon taxes on it, the windfall tax and charge standard rate corporation tax in “ring-fenced” products from 40% to the main rate of 25%. And issue new licences.
“Reeves said she was “working through pretty intensely the technical details with the energy companies” to ensure extraction as quickly as possible.”
I’m sure companies that have been in the business for over a century will be glad of Rachel from accounts’ expert help with technical details.
“However, the Chancellor also said she was working closely with Miliband to break the link between gas and electricity prices in an effort to reduce Britain’s exposure to volatile energy prices.”
Volatile implies fluctuation. Our electricity prices don’t fluctuate, they rise exponentially directly proportional to the amount of “renewable” energy joining the grid. It has nothing to do with the price of gas. If it did, electricity prices would track the price of gas. They don’t, even when gas prices fall, electricity prices keep going up.
Imagiune yourself a director of an oil or gas exploration and recovery firm. You have just been driven from the North Sea by a lack of new licenses over several years, litigation which decided the Climate Change Act prohibits extraction and massive tax rises. All thanks to the Tories (with LD help in the early years) and Labour.
As a business person or investor would you trust the Labour Government or the Courts to let you extract oil/gas and make a profit. Or might you worry about whether licenses will be wirth the paper they are written on or tax rates, come to that. The prospect of Milliband as PM after TTK would put shivers down the spine of any business, especially in the energy sectcor.
Now along comes Rachel. Whgen she says the government wil increase oil exploration she may mean the government will issue new exploration and extraction licenses. So results are not assured. Litigation is certain and the judiciary is heavily Net Zero oriented.
Let’s assume a couple of firms get through all that. They will find the technology and sjills they need are no longer there in quantity. So many people have been laiod off… Read more »
It may take time but there are no alternatives, no matter what Dale Vince or XR or Greta or Milibrain pontificate on. Here is a 1960s perspective.
“Take away the energy-distributing networks and the industrial machinery from America, Russia, and all the world’s industrialized countries, and within six months more than two billion swiftly and painfully deteriorating people will starve to death. Take away all the world’s politicians, all the ideologies and their professional protagonists from those same countries, and send them off on a rocket trip around the sun and leave all the countries their present energy networks, industrial machinery, routine production and distribution personnel, and no more humans will starve nor be afflicted in health than at present.
Fortunately, the do-more-with-less invention initiative does not derive from political debate, bureaucratic licensing, or private economic patronage. The license comes only from the blue sky of the inventor’s intellect. No one licensed the inventors of the airplane, telephone, electric light, and radio to go to work. It took only the personally dedicated initiative of five men to invent those world transforming and world shrinking developments. Herein lies the unexpectedly swift effectiveness of the design-science revolution. Despite this historical demonstrable fact,… Read more »
Reeves said she was “working through pretty intensely the technical details with the energy companies”
Absolute comedy gold….
Except that businesses dying by a thousand cuts aren’t laughing. The destruction this under qualified, over promoted, conceited imposter is inflicting on the private sector is appalling. She is simply too ignorant to recognise the extent of the damage her ideology is causing. She will redistribute what is not hers to give until there is nothing left. The most execrable chancellor ever in the history of the UK is the only thing that distinguishes her.
Technical details: ‘If you make any money we’re having it.’
Exactly – one strategy could be for the UK listed companies to invest in all the infrastructure, but don’t use it yet – write the investment off against UK corporation tax… and have it ready for when a more sensible government appears
What’s drilling in the North Sea got to do with our Rach? Surely that’s big Ed’s job
I’d say she’s trying to grab the opportunity before the May elections car crash… perhaps thinking about, god forbid, the big job…
It’s too late for her reputation. She caused a lot of financial hardship and its a bit rich if she expects praise for then trying fix the mess she caused. I’m sure there must be a word for this?
We always need to take into account these people have no shame or sense of honour… they will take all they can get…
And on another story, at a press conference this morning, Keir Starmer has said that he is absolutely appalled that he lied to himself, he cannot believe that he didn’t tell himself he was lying when he addressed Parliament and when he attended other press conferences. He is going to launch a public enquiry inside his brain to find out why the left side of his brain allowed the right to say things when that side knew that what was being said was untrue. He will decide later which side of his brain will be sacked once the enquiry reports and tells his arse it is different from his elbow.
Later on, in an interview with the World at One, one of Olly’s mates said that it has undermined confidence in the service as a whole. It’ll be interesting to hear what S says next week. As an experienced lawyer he might try to argue that he wasn’t actually lying, just didn’t understand what he meant due to lack of complete evidence, not to deliberately misinform the members. A bit like the difference between murder and manslaughter; the victim is dead either way.
When the CEO of a company is considering some action or hiring a key worker, he asks responsible parties to prepare a report and recommendations.
If Starmer failed to do this he is not up to the job.
However. Starmer never answers a question at PMQs and seems to be blind-sided by events domestically and internationally.
I wonder then if he just does not bother, or is incapable of making sure he is properly briefed, as if his job is figurehead but not executive.
And therein lies the truth.
Its just like a bunch of 10 year olds, trying to get their story straight about who broke the glass in the greenhouse.
Wouldn’t Ed take the credit for that? Greenhouses are bad Shirley?
“Rachel Reeves has said Britain will step up North Sea drilling”
Well, “Britain” will not be doing any drilling, unless her and Sir Kneel are going to go up there with a dinghy and a Blac & Decker. Extraction firms will be doing the drilling – drilling they would presumably have been doing long since had they not been prevented from doing so by successive idiot/evil governments. But we apparently have free market capitalism in the UK, definitely not socialism, definitely not a centrally planned economy….
But it will lead to an increased revenue via the so-called :windfall tax”. https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/oil-and-gas-revenues/ Money talks.
Only if there is something to tax.
Why would the private companies want to drill more with such punitive taxes in place – they can drill somewhere else, and are doing so…
The question is… will these big exploration/drilling companies be prepared to risk more political flip flopping? Same issue in New Zealand. Closure so the big outfits just go and will not be lured back because of the prospect of pollie flip flopping.
There is no FREE MARKET in energy. Government interfere in every aspect of it. They have preferred technologies that they chuck massive subsidy at (wind and sun etc) and they have technologies that they are totally opposed to (coal gas oil) that they hammer out of existence with mandates, regulation and carbon taxes etc.