The Rosebank oil and gas field

The Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland has just been given the green light for development. I believe this is a vital boost to our energy security which will support thousands of jobs and help us to take a pragmatic approach to achieving Net Zero by 2050 whilst growing the economy. 

  • The North Sea Transition Authority has today granted development and production consent for the Rosebank oil field in Shetland – which is expected to produce 69,000 barrels of oil and 44 million cubic feet of gas per day. 
  • Conservatives are taking a pragmatic, proportionate, and realistic approach to reaching Net Zero by 2050. While we are scaling up clean energy sources such as offshore wind and nuclear, the UK will still rely on oil and gas in a Net Zero 2050. Unlike Labour, we are proud of our UK oil and gas heritage and projects like Rosebank have a much lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels imported from abroad. 
  • This project will boost Britain's energy security, grow our economy, and support over 200,000 jobs. The short-term approach of Labour and other parties which oppose this would weaken our energy security, cost £87 billion and put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk.

Comments

Jim said…
The main concern I have, is that its becoming the trend (as we see with a certain coal mine) that opponents of any policy are looking to the courts of law to enforce policies regardless of who is elected.

We see this href=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/26/tory-mp-rishi-sunak-net-zero-economy-chris-skidmore>here from conservative Chris Skidmore. In effect putting policies outside the scope of elections, so regardless of how people vote the policy is enacted anyway.

we currently have a situation where apathy is common as "the parties are all the same" actions like this only serve to make it more so.
6:16 am
Chris Whiteside said…
As very often, Jim, you make a powerful and important point.

There are sometimes good reasons to enshrine targets in law. This has higher democratic legitimacy when the electorate has an opportunity to influence whether it happens - e.g. when a party includes in its' election manifesto that if they win the coming election they will include this target in law.

However, even if it is done that way, putting too many targets into law can both leave governments without the flexibility to respond to unforeseen events, and can mean that policies end up being set by the courts, not the electorate.
1:44 pm
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