Fossil Fuel Advertising and Sponsorship

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Not being one to break consensus often, I am delighted to remind hon. Members of the value and importance of our oil and gas industry to communities in north-east Scotland such as my own, to the Exchequer, and to the United Kingdom’s energy security.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) on so eloquently outlining the case for the petition, and the 110,000 people who signed it on enabling it to be debated this afternoon. They make a very strong case for changing the advertising regulations as they pertain to fossil fuel companies, due to the impact of burning fossil fuels on climate change. The reasons they give are twofold: because oil and gas are damaging for the environment, and to set an example to the rest of the world.

We know that burning fossil fuels emits carbon, which is leading to global warming. That is not up for debate, but if people think that shutting down the UK’s oil and gas industry or stopping it from advertising what it is doing will mean less carbon in the atmosphere, I am afraid they are sorely mistaken. First, we will need oil and gas for decades to come. Even the Climate Change Committee knows that oil and gas will remain integral to the United Kingdom’s energy mix, with fossil fuels predicted still to account for 23% of energy demand by 2050, and that is assuming we meet our climate obligations.

Secondly, more carbon is emitted if liquefied natural gas is shipped in from abroad, as is happening increasingly, having been drilled or fracked in Venezuela, the USA or even Norway. Although we all accept that the use of fossil fuels is contributing to global warming, shutting down our domestic production to resolve that, or stopping companies from advertising and telling the world what they are doing, is clearly illogical, as is taxing our domestic industry into extinction, refusing new exploration licences and damaging competitiveness through advertising bans. In fact, all those things would increase global emissions.

I turn to the argument about setting an example. The rhetoric of leading by example, being world leaders and winning the race on climate change is commonplace, and we are setting the pace. We slashed emissions by more than 50% compared with our 1992 levels, and we did so while the Conservatives were in government and faster than any other G7 nation, but we must look at what is happening now. The deindustrialisation of massive areas of the United Kingdom—Grangemouth, for example—has resulted in a hostile environment and sky-high green levies. The message is quite clear: do not follow where we tread. Other countries will look to the UK as an obvious example of how not to do it, because we have in no way demonstrated how to develop a sustainable energy future without undermining our industrial base or economy. That is making Britain poorer.

A ban on fossil fuel advertising would be counter-productive, because unlike previous bans on tobacco or junk food advertising referenced this afternoon, banning fossil fuel advertising will not reduce demand. The UK will continue to rely on oil and gas over the coming decades. Our oil and gas industry is not antithetical to our climate commitments; it underpins them. Without gas for energy, the lights in this country would go off and industry in this country would shut up shop. Without refined oil, we would have no medicines, bike tyres, phones, plastics, wind turbines, oil to lubricate the wind turbines, solar panels or batteries for the electric cars that the Government are urging people to buy.

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

I appreciate the work that has gone into the shadow Minister’s speech, but when he will address the petition’s point about advertising? It seems to me that most of the speech so far has been merely an advert for the fossil fuel industry.

[Andrew Bowie]

If the hon. Lady is patient, I will come to that—I seem to have some two and a half hours to make my remarks. I will get to the point on advertising, but my point stands: without fossil fuels, we would have none of the above.

Let us look at China. It is often condemned for opening a new coal-fired power station every two weeks, but in the very next breath it is applauded for record investment in green technologies. The two are inextricably linked. Cheap, abundant energy is the only way to achieve innovation, a strong domestic manufacturing base, and industrial competitiveness. If we want the UK to drive the clean technologies of the future, we must bring down the cost of energy in the short term. The technologies and the skilled workers in the supply chain are the very technologies and the very people in the very companies—working in oil and gas right now—that are developing the cleaner energy future that we all want.

Even if we drive the industry out of the UK entirely or prevent it from advertising in the UK, it will still do so. It will just do it from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Australia, south-east Asia, South America, Mexico, the USA, Canada, Norway—in fact, anywhere that is still investing in its domestic oil and gas industry. We rely on the oil and gas industry every single day, so a ban on fossil fuel advertisements would not reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. Instead it would simply be a further signal that the UK’s energy industry is closed for business.

This is personal to me, to my constituents and to the region that I have had the privilege to represent in this place for the last eight years. I saw when I was growing up, and I still see today, the immense contribution that the energy sector makes to communities and to economies. I see the value added by those high wage jobs that support families and communities. I know the individuals who make a positive contribution to the lives of their families, their home towns and our nation every day. Without them and their hard work, the lights would literally go out in this country. That is especially important as yesterday we marked 37 years since the Piper Alpha disaster, when 165 men lost their lives in the North sea while ensuring that energy still flowed into our nation. We remember the sacrifice that these individuals still make for us.

The Government’s harmful policies regarding the oil and gas sector, including the ban on new licences, are already causing the contraction of businesses. The Just Transition Commission has forecast that up to 120,000 jobs in the energy sector could be lost by 2030. We absolutely need to continue developing the cleaner energy mix of the future by investing in new nuclear, carbon capture and storage, and the rest. Renowned oil and gas companies have siphoned millions of pounds of investment into offshore wind and clean power generation, and we should allow them to tell the world about that.

If we are serious about reducing our carbon emissions, we must be serious about supporting the very companies with the expertise, infrastructure and capital to deliver that. The energy transition will be achieved not by demonising the oil and gas sector, but by working with it. These companies are not just part of the problem; they are essential to the solution.

Equinor, Ørsted and Vattenfall are leading examples of how legacy fossil fuel firms can pivot towards clean energy—

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. I have been very generous, but the debate has a very narrow focus on advertising. I am sure that the shadow Minister understands that and will come back to that issue.

[Andrew Bowie]

I absolutely will. In fact, Mr Twigg, you have pre-empted exactly where I was going in my speech.

Such investments are not token gestures—[Interruption.] Exactly. They are strategic investments that will shape the future of energy. Domestic supply chains, from engineering specialists to subsea infrastructure manufacturers, and from power cable component suppliers to logistics and offshore support companies, will support the transition. Again, we should allow them to tell people in this country about their work.

[Carla Denyer]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard earlier in the debate from the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) that some oil and gas companies advertise their work on decarbonising despite it making up only 0.3% of their business. On that basis, I could arguably edit my Wikipedia page to say that I am a professional swimmer or pub quizzer, but I do not think that would be a fair representation of what I spend most of my time doing, although it probably adds up to 0.3% of my time in some months. On that basis, would the hon. Gentleman reconsider whether he really thinks it is fair to allow oil and gas companies to advertise work that accounts for less than 0.5% of their business and use that to greenwash their image?

[Andrew Bowie]

No, obviously that would not be fair, but as has already been pointed out, the Advertising Standards Authority has demonstrated that it possesses both the mandate and the mechanisms to hold companies to account for misleading environmental claims, and as yet it has found none to be in breach.

It is important that those companies, which require the underlying profit from their traditional exploration and drilling work to support their investment in the clean technologies of the future, are allowed to tell the country and the world about that. We should be immensely proud that we have not only a world-leading oil and gas sector—the cleanest basin from which to extract oil and gas in the world right now—but one that spends billions on developing the clean technologies of the future and attracts international companies to the United Kingdom to do the same.

If the issue is the accuracy of advertising, we should have confidence in the existing regulatory framework, which has proven capable of intervening where necessary. A blanket ban is neither proportionate nor necessary when robust oversight is already in place. I am afraid that the ban advocated by the petition may be purely ideological. It would damage investor confidence and be counterproductive in reducing carbon emissions.

I am proud that BP, Shell, Total, Equinor and the rest invest in music, art, culture, education and sport across the UK—and let us look at what happens when they do not. Baillie Gifford, a global investment management firm that invests in some of Scotland and the UK’s biggest companies, which just happen to be oil and gas companies, was sadly forced, under pressure from environmental activists, to withdraw support for the Edinburgh international book festival. Who has had to step up at the last minute to plug the gap? It is the Scottish Government—the taxpayer—to the tune of £300,000 this year alone, at a time of tightening budgets, fiscal constraints and a difficult financial outlook for the country. When there was money already available, that is utter madness.

The oil and gas industry, which is based in and around Aberdeen but has a presence across our entire island nation, is a national asset. We should be championing it and the people who work in it, not demonising them. We should be proud when we see the names of successful British companies supporting British artists, musicians and sportspeople, and when we see them investing in communities, schools and our country. We should absolutely allow them to tell the world of the globally significant investment that they are making in the clean technologies of the future, and we should not have any truck with this petition.