Andy Burnham has delayed a decision on new licences for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has claimed.
Ms Badenoch said the Prime Minister had been expected to announce the licences at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton on Tuesday, with a possible visit to Aberdeen also reportedly under consideration. Both plans have now been shelved, she said.
She claimed the delay was linked to Labour’s close contest with the Green Party in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, due to take place at the start of October.
Ms Badenoch accused Mr Burnham of avoiding difficult decisions on defence, welfare, and oil and gas after becoming Prime Minister. She also described him as “Continuity Keir”, arguing that he had adopted the approach of his predecessor on the issue.
The Conservative leader said the uncertainty would affect thousands of oil and gas workers in Scotland and elsewhere in Britain.
The Conservatives approved licences for Rosebank and Jackdaw while in government, according to Ms Badenoch. She said a legal challenge was pursued by opponents of the projects until Labour entered government, after which Mr Burnham and then climate secretary Ed Miliband began a consultation process that delayed approval by a further two years.
Ms Badenoch said gas from Jackdaw could have been entering the national grid by Christmas if the decision had not been postponed. She claimed it could supply about 1.4 million homes, reduce reliance on imported gas, support jobs and generate an estimated £1.4 billion in tax revenue by the end of the Parliament.
Instead, she said, Britain would continue importing energy from countries including Qatar and Saudi Arabia. She argued that imported energy had a higher carbon footprint and that delaying domestic production would not help tackle climate change.
Ms Badenoch used the dispute to set out her opposition to the Government’s existing energy policy. She said the Conservatives would abandon what she called “meaningless targets like Net Zero 2050”, increase domestic oil and gas production, remove levies and charges on energy bills, and reduce regulation affecting the industry.
She described energy security as a matter of national and economic security, and said the delay to the Rosebank and Jackdaw licences put both at risk.
Ms Badenoch also pointed to by-election results in Makerfield and Aberdeen South, where she said Mr Burnham and Conservative candidate Douglas Lumsden respectively won on the same day. She argued that the Aberdeen South result reflected the interests of tens of thousands of people employed in the UK oil and gas sector.
She called on Mr Burnham to approve the two licences, saying the decision was important to workers and to those concerned about deindustrialisation and high energy bills.
