Jackdaw Gas Field

Baroness Curran Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we recognise the logic of this decision, but approving a new gas field in a climate crisis is proof that Britain has not moved nearly fast enough to cut demand for gas in our homes and transport. Jackdaw was licensed decades ago. The decision is late because the Conservative Government failed to do the necessary preparations, and North Sea workers in the industry have paid the cost ever since. We accept that gas will be needed for decades during the transition, but burning fossil fuels causes climate change, and this summer’s wildfires and heat waves show us the true cost.

Although we could have properly invested in our transition towards cleaner, cheaper and more efficient energy, successive Governments—some more than others —have instead left the UK in a state of energy insecurity. By scrapping insulation schemes, the Conservatives built around 1.6 million homes to lower efficiency standards, costing families in those homes an extra £5 billion in bills between 2017 and 2025. The Conservatives also blocked onshore wind and cancelled zero-carbon homes, leaving us far more exposed to ever-rising global gas prices.

The Conservatives and Reform still talk about the North Sea as though it were a magic lamp. The fact is that it is a basin in terminal decline. The Conservatives’ latest so-called evidence is the Onward report, which Carbon Brief’s fact check found assumes that gas prices will fall back to pre-war levels and stay there for 20 years. One Imperial College professor said that the modelling

“has more holes than a Swiss cheese”.

Even on its own terms, it would mean an extra 524 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and slower electrification. The Climate Change Committee estimates that a single fossil fuel gas spike on the scale of 2022 could cost as much as the net additional cost of reaching net zero across every year to 2050.

Jackdaw will not bring energy bills down. It can only add to the margins of our energy security. Jackdaw can play a short-term role only if it displaces the most polluting LNG and if it leads to more technological green investment. What guarantees are there that this will happen? Will the Government publish the evidence and report on it each year?

Rosebank, on the other hand, is different. The vast majority of it is oil and is sold on the international market, so it will not lower our bills, and the evidence shows that it fails the climate test. We await that decision and we will hold the Government to account.

The Government have also said that tax revenues will go into the new energy wealth fund to invest in green technology, which we welcome. However, the OBR forecasts North Sea tax receipts falling from £4.1 billion in 2025-26 to just £100 million by 2030-31—a 98% drop that Jackdaw cannot reverse. How will Parliament know how this money is spent?

The real answer to energy security is having homegrown renewable power the price of which we control and electrifying everything at speed. This Government are slipping ever further behind. Labour cannot argue that we need more gas because we failed to transition at speed while slowing their own electrification ambitions. The vehicle mandate requires 80% of new cars to be electric by 2030. Reports suggest that Ministers are leaning towards cutting that target to 60%. Does the Minister accept that this would be a disaster, sending the wrong signal to manufacturers, charge point investors and drivers? I ask the Minister to rule out any weakening of the 2030 target and to say when the review will report.

The target for heat pumps has been cut from 600,000 a year by 2028 to 450,000 by 2030. We are among the slowest in Europe because electricity costs are so much higher than gas. On insulation, the warm homes local grant has upgraded just 5,470 homes as of July—0.1% of the 5 million target by 2030. The Government must commit to a national electrification strategy and to a 10-year emergency home upgrade programme, starting with free insulation for the lowest-income households.

I welcome the commitment in the Statement to take levies off electricity bills, but Ministers have committed to remove only two-thirds of the renewable obligation and for just three years. We must remove it fully and decouple the price of electricity from that of gas.

I am concerned that new North Sea production, airport expansion and new data centres are adding emissions, while developing the grid, electric vehicles and heat pumps are falling behind. When will the Government receive the Climate Change Committee’s advice and will they commission a fundamental new assessment of our carbon budgets? The just transition is not delivering for North Sea workers and their communities. Labour should establish the just transition commission that we have called for.

Jackdaw must be the very last. This may be a pragmatic decision, but it must not become a precedent. The only lasting route to security and human survival is to enable the end of our addiction to oil and gas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Baroness Curran) (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for those substantial contributions, and I will do my best to address them as much as I can. I am sure we will have countless opportunities to address them again.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, began by mentioning a number of other North Sea oil and gas projects. As noble Lords will know, I cannot comment on other projects as they are undergoing relevant quasi-judicial processes. However, I lodge the general point that he made, and I am sure it is one that we will continue to discuss.

On Sea Lion, as the Government have said in this Chamber before, the Government maintain a consistent position on the right of the Falkland Islands to develop its natural resources. This is integral to its right of self-determination, which is grounded in international law. UK oil and gas licensing policy does not apply in the Falkland Islands.

I turn to some of the noble Lord’s general points, and I want to be absolutely clear. He began on quite a positive note. I did get some congratulations, so I register my appreciation of that, even if it did not last very long. The North Sea remains a vital asset. It supports jobs, communities and our energy security. Even on the path to net zero, the UK will still require oil and gas for decades to come as we make the clean energy transition.

I think the fundamental disagreement between our positions today is that—I return to the challenge that the noble Lord has given me—he failed to mention the challenge of climate change. After the summer that we have had and all the signs that surround us, I think that is a dereliction of duty. We cannot look at just the production of gas and how we consume gas. We have to look at our carbon emissions, and we have to have a plan to deal with that. That is why this plan, this decision, is vital.

Jackdaw will start supplying gas to British homes and businesses in the coming weeks. At its peak, it is expected to increase UK domestic gas production by around 6%. It is a meaningful production, but it is still in line with our climate change commitments. Those climate change commitments are central to the policy of this Government, which is why our approach to the North Sea goes hand in hand with our ambitions for a managed, orderly and prosperous energy transition. As confirmed by the Prime Minister, who I agree with—and noble Lords should wait until the Prime Minister or any Minister makes formal decisions—this Government will hold to the target of reaching net zero by 2050 to meet the climate challenge and transition from fossil fuels to renewables and nuclear.

Let us be clear that the Jackdaw project will not prevent the UK being able to meet its legally binding limits on carbon emissions or achieving net zero by 2050, but, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, indicated, Britain is a price taker, not a price maker. The price we pay for gas is determined ultimately by international markets, so while domestic production supports our energy security, producing more gas cannot, by itself, protect British consumers from volatile international prices. That is the charge I return to the noble Lord. He talked about the challenge of relying on renewables, but he does not take responsibility for the impact that volatile gas prices and their knock-on effects have had on British consumers.

We talk about developing the North Sea and continuing to do so. I remind the noble Lord that under the previous Tory Government 70,000 jobs in the North Sea were lost, which indicates that there are challenges there. Just increasing production there cannot be seen as a solution.

I turn to some of the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I appreciated his introduction to his questions, which was quite interesting. We have heard very little from the Conservatives about the Onward report, and very little about their cheap energy plan. These have been questioned quite significantly in relation to the thinking and the figures behind them, but I am happy to return to that discussion if the noble Earl wishes to do so. He indicated some very useful stats in relation to that.

The noble Earl mentioned the energy wealth fund, which was announced alongside the Jackdaw decision. Its purpose is to use Britain’s energy wealth today to invest in the clean energy industries of the future. It will invest in renewable and low-carbon energy infrastructure across the UK, helping to unlock growth and supporting the low-carbon economy.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, also talked about the zero-emissions vehicles mandate. On 14 August, the Government launched the mandate review consultation, which sought views from the public and stakeholders to consider the ZEV mandate and ensure that it is fit for purpose. The consultation forms an important part of the long-committed mandate review and has just closed. As your Lordships know, the Government have a long-standing commitment to publish that review to ensure that we are taking a pragmatic and balanced approach to the transition for transport. The Government launched the consultation so that views from stakeholders and the public could properly inform the review. No policy decisions have yet been made, but I assure noble Lords that the Government remain committed to the zero-emissions vehicle mandate.

The noble Earl also mentioned the warm homes plan. The warm homes plan represents the biggest ever programme of home upgrades in history and is already helping households to cut their energy bills, through solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and insulation. On heat pumps, to which he referred specifically, under the boiler upgrade scheme, the Government have supported over 90,000 heat pump installations and issued over £600 million in grant funding to homes in England and Wales.

I take the general point the noble Earl made about the renewables obligation, the work that we have done on that and the de-linking that we need to undertake in this country. Britain has already moved from gas setting the price of electricity for about 90% of the time in the early 2020s to around 60% today. So we are on that journey, and it is a journey that we want to continue to be on. Through the Government’s clean energy mission, it is estimated that gas will set the wholesale price for around half the time in 2030.

I return to the general point about the decision itself. The Jackdaw decision is fundamental to the decisions that we are making as a Government. It does not affect prices, but it will help with production and give a small but meaningful contribution to energy security. I re-emphasise that Britain has a secure gas system that has consistently met demand, including during periods of global market disruption, and will continue to do so this winter. We have also emphasised the economic benefits to Britain. The developer estimates that Jackdaw will support nearly 300 jobs and contribute around £2.9 billion to the UK economy. I am very pleased that most noble Lords have welcomed the decision today, for which I thank them.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the Statement includes a proposal that there should be a North Sea energy wealth fund, which will put £2 billion into further development of some kind. I am proud of the way in which, under both parties, we developed the North Sea in an amazing way and at an amazing speed in the last century. I give full credit to Tony Benn, who got it going, although his methods were slightly different from those of some of us on the other side.

We now have the North Sea wealth fund, Great British Energy, the North Sea Transition Authority and the GB nuclear authority. That is before we come to any of the decommissioning authorities or other authorities developing the energy transition. Is this not overegging the pudding? It seems to me that we are creating more carbon emissions with all this bureaucracy than will be saved by anything else. Could the Minister assure us that someone has an eye on keeping this bureaucracy under control? We should let the basic forces of good regulation and innovation lead to more jobs for this country and even more jobs for the supply chains all over the world. Can she reassure us this is being kept under watch and not running out of control?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that very interesting question, and I pay tribute to him and recognise his great experience in this field over—being respectful—many decades. He raises a very interesting point about the carbon emissions of bureaucracy; that is quite an interesting question I could ask in the department. Challenging bureaucracy, looking at costs, driving down duplication and always making sure that you are driven by outcomes are very good principles of government. I take the point that he raises very seriously, and it is something that I and the department will keep in the forefront of our minds. When we are creating the necessary infrastructure to implement our decision-making, it is vital that we do not bureaucratise or duplicate. We should have a carbon emissions assessment of that too. In the spirit of the partnership that he began with, I think we can say that the commitment to the North Sea remains because it will play a great part in our energy mix for decades to come.

[Baroness Gill (Lab)]

My Lords, could my noble friend the Minister inform the House about the Government’s plans for the energy wealth fund. How will it impact household bills and jobs?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. The energy wealth fund is an important part of the announcement that was made on the same day that the decision was made on Jackdaw. For once, we must acknowledge that we should make use of the receipts that we receive, and we want to feed that back into the clean energy transition. It will be beneficial because it will be clear where that money is being spent. It will help fund a clean transition, as I said; it can help with many parts of the infrastructure that we need to facilitate clean infrastructure. While there will not be a direct read across to bills, it will certainly help in the long term as we establish our energy security and get off the fossil-fuel rollercoaster, because that will help protect affordability in the long run. That kind of investment, focused in that way, will help us develop the clean energy industries of the future. As we know, there is growing investment in that field; I think there is £110 billion of private investment in the clean energy sector. That, of course, will have a read over to jobs. Many of them are skilled, high-paying jobs, which is vital to my nation of Scotland but also vital, as we now know, throughout the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, at COP 30 in Belém, the UK led an international statement on fossil fuels calling for robust monitoring of methane emissions and the elimination of routine venting and flaring. We have heard again today the demonstrably wrong statement about the comparative level of emissions intensity of imports versus our own gas. The overwhelming majority of UK gas imports—69% last year—come from Norway, where the gas production is almost four times less polluting. One of the key reasons for this is that Norway long ago banned emergency flaring of gas and has far less leakage. Given the Jackdaw decision, are the Government treating the reduction in methane emissions and gas flaring from all UK gas production as a matter of urgency? What practical steps are they taking to ensure these are not just voluntary rules for the industry but genuine, enforced rules?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

Does it not make a change to hear the Greens actually talk about environmental issues? Being Scottish, I would emphasise that point. The noble Baroness mentioned methane. The North Sea oil and gas sector has one of the lowest methane emission intensities globally. The industry is already taking action to cut its methane emissions by stopping leaks and reducing the use of venting and flaring to deliberately release gas. This saw the industry reach its 2025 methane intensity target of 0.2% five years early in 2020, meaning that, for every 1,000 units of gas sold, no more than two units should be released as methane.

I will take the opportunity to address the noble Baroness on this issue, because I have not had the opportunity before. She properly and understandably presses this Government on their climate commitments and the need to build new renewables infrastructure. I plead with her to talk to some of the Green Party’s Members of Parliament and ask them to please stop objecting to renewables development in their own constituencies, because that might help us move forward on this agenda.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, the National Energy System Operator—NESO—has four future energy scenarios. Two things are true about these four scenarios: first, the different scenarios will require different amounts of fossil fuel in 2050; and, secondly, the decision about which of these paths the Government wish to follow has to be made now, because each of the scenarios will have long-term implications for investment in infrastructure. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government have decided to follow one of NESO’s future energy scenarios? If they have not decided, when will they decide which one they want to choose?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I was warned about questions from the Cross-Benchers: that they are always very thorough and demanding, and so it has come to pass. I know of NESO and some of that work, but I cannot list the four scenarios. I can say that we are looking at the combination and at the demands we will need to have met by 2050 to make sure that we have a robust and absolute energy supply. I know that NESO, despite the current investigations that are under way, has emphatically said that we are on that course. I guarantee the noble Lord that this Government will never take a decision that undermines a robust energy supply, but we are also very cognisant of climate change, because that has a knock-on effect on our energy supply. We believe that strikes the right balance and takes us on the journey we need to be on. Having said that, I do not want to be dismissive of the substance of the noble Lord’s question; it is something we should always be alert to. I will look at the different models and perhaps have a further discussion with the noble Lord.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, these questions give me the unusual pleasure of congratulating the Minister on her announcement. Will she now make my day by announcing the Government’s permission for the Rosebank field to go ahead? There can be no remaining objections, given that, within the Government, the most extreme and fanatical opponent of developing oil fields, the Foreign Secretary—and former Energy Secretary—has given approval for the Sea Lion field in the Falklands. Can the Minister explain why it could possibly be right there and wrong here, and why there should be a day’s delay in giving Rosebank approval?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, which was not terribly surprising. I do not quite comprehend the Opposition Benches’ obsession with Ed Miliband, but I suppose it is something I will have to learn to live with. The noble Lord knows full well that the Rosebank decision is a quasi-judicial decision. While I acknowledge the interest in it, I cannot be tempted into making any direct comment on it. The decision on Jackdaw does not prejudge Rosebank or any other application. Each decision is made on its merits, and all the evidence will be looked at and thoroughly investigated. It will be a robust decision, based on the evidence.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the comments from the Minister on challenging the bureaucracy. It is a shame that her predecessors in the Conservative Government and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition did not challenge it to ensure a much greater British content in renewable energy, and that we have become so dependent on foreign manufacturers. I urge her to challenge the presumption that there is nothing we can do about gas prices and security, either through storage or—as Australia is doing—by mandating that a percentage of gas be produced for the domestic market. We are not passive in this, and we should become an active Government. That message needs to get back into Whitehall.

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I believe in proactive government, and I am very happy to take a message back to Whitehall to say that we need to be much more assertive and proactive in defending not just our energy interests but the general interests of the country. I am happy to take that energy back—if I can. The Australian model is interesting and is something I want to look at.

Storage has been raised here a number of times. I have gone back to the department constantly to ask questions about storage and have had reassurance about that, but it is something I will continue to look at. The noble Lord is right: we need to look after the interests of British workers and industries, making sure we can extract every possible opportunity from that. Every penny the Government spend should be considered within that frame, and I will go back and pursue that. I do not know whether my team will always agree with me, but I am happy to challenge bureaucracy at all times.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, right now the economy of Aberdeen, in the north-east of Scotland, is hurting badly. The decision on Jackdaw has been welcomed and will be extremely helpful to the situation. By the way, I was an early supporter of targets for net zero, which I support 100%, and I am very concerned that the Conservatives have now abandoned that, because they are creating confusion in the markets for both retail and investment. We need to ensure that we deliver net zero, which is not incompatible with developing oil and gas reserves. My plea for Rosebank is: yes, it will have emissions, but those emissions will happen whether the oil is produced here or elsewhere. The logic is to produce it here at lower carbon and get the benefit of investment, jobs and taxes. I know the Minister cannot answer the question, but it is important that this is put on record as a legitimate reason for considering it positively.

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

Yes, and of course the noble Lord will take the opportunity to put such matters on the record, because he knows that Jackdaw did not prejudge any other application and it will be looked at on its merits. I agree with his fundamental assertion and the generality that it is possible to still extract gas from the North Sea but also maintain our climate commitments, and we should not lose our energy on tackling the climate crisis. We have a responsibility here to tell the British public about what is happening and the potential difficulties and challenges that we face after this summer—we should all be alert to that. I share the noble Lord’s challenge to the Conservatives, who I think we are just about to hear from.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

It was a great decision on Jackdaw. I see in the Statement that the Government want to decommission existing facilities at speed. Would it not be better to keep them and work with the industry to get more of our oil and gas out? That would be much lower CO₂, particularly than importing LNG.

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

Decommissioning is an important issue to raise. The noble Lord will know that we have asked Shell to submit its decommissioning programme for the Energy Secretary to consider. The next stage of the Brent decommissioning process has been under review since 2017. A final decision will be made only once all relevant evidence, representations and legal requirements have been considered, so we are taking pragmatic steps to unblock long-standing decision processes such as this—but the noble Lord makes an important point about the importance of decommissioning.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister has made clear that this decision, understandable as it is within the context of the current circumstances, in no way detracts from the overall priorities and mission of the Government regarding net zero. She also made clear that it does not in any way affect the prices of gas for consumers in this country. It is said that the new North Sea energy wealth fund will support plans to delink gas and electricity over the course of this Parliament. Again and again we have raised the issue of how gas prices actually make things much more expensive for electricity consumers. On what timetable are the Government going to make some progress on this important issue?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I am not sure I can give her a precise timetable, in all sincerity, because there is a series of decisions linked to it and it does not lend itself to a given timetable. We have made progress from 90% to 60% over the course of this decade. We want to keep the pace going on that and we will continue. Of course, it is contingent on a variety of issues, but I am happy to keep that issue on the agenda and at the forefront of our minds.

The noble Baroness mentioned climate change, and I emphasise how important this is. We have COP coming up. We regard ourselves as international leaders on climate change and we want to keep that position. The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister will be attending COP, which is an indication of the significance we give to it. This will be an ongoing conversation that I am happy to discuss in Parliament and with the noble Baroness.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, as a former accountant of a major international oil company, I am highly sceptical of the tax numbers floated in this debate and generally. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that profits from Jackdaw are not shifted from the UK to a low or no-tax jurisdiction through transfer pricing strategies, which are already failing the tax authorities? Shell, which is a part-owner of Jackdaw, is an absolute master of shifting profits from the UK to elsewhere and thereby dodging UK taxes. What assurances can the Minister offer the House that this would be curbed?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

You do not get challenging questions only from the Cross-Benchers. As an accounting professor, the noble Lord knows quite a lot about this. Of course, we would not want to see excessive profit, manipulation or improper activity within this field. We will be trying to ensure that investment is properly managed.

The noble Lord just put on the record the behaviour of certain companies and the consequences of that. I am not personally versed in that, but it is something I will look at. Obviously, there are limits to what we can do with private companies. When I was at the Dispatch Box last week, the Tories and the noble Lord were in unison and in one voice; I suspect that on this question they are not. I will come back to the noble Lord.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Does the Minister not accept that heat pumps are very inefficient? To heat water and the house, you also need solar panels and battery storage units. Can the Minister take that into consideration on heat pumps?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

Of course, we would want to understand any practical difficulties and challenges. My understanding is that heat pumps have become very useful to people, who value them and find that they make a useful contribution. I would always wish to be guided by the evidence, but we are seeing that they are regarded as an important part of the infrastructure for a renewable future. That is the evidence that I have seen.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree with me that a case can be made for the Jackdaw field because it displaces higher-carbon LPG coming into the country with UK natural gas, which has lower emissions? That case cannot be made for oil permissions—where the oil has been explored but not yet produced—because oil is 30% higher in emissions than even LPG. Does my noble friend agree with me that the best way we can proceed is to go along with the International Energy Agency’s view that we already have enough explored but not yet produced oil across the world to bust our climate change targets three times over and that the best thing to do is to leave it in the ground?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I suspect that my noble friend knows what I will say in response to that: I cannot prejudge any decision. The decision on Rosebank will be quasi-judicial and I cannot comment on it. Like my response to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, I say to my noble friend that he has got his point on the record.