Contribution
Too often when we debate energy in this place it becomes tribal very quickly. Members are either in favour of oil and gas or renewables—there is no room for nuance. We need renewables, we need nuclear, but we also need oil and gas.
Many Members have spoken about the cost. Cost is one element, but supply is vital, because oil and gas makes up three quarters of the energy we need every day. It is the energy we need for the 24 million homes and over 500,000 businesses that still rely on oil and gas. Oil and gas is needed in industries such as pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals. The energy independence Bill assumes that just by calling it energy independence we are suddenly not dependent on oil and gas. That is not true, and that will not be the case far into the future because we have not developed the systems to move us away from oil and gas as quickly as we needed to.
Look at our nearest neighbours in Norway, a country that many people rightly think has its energy system done correctly. There are five flights a day from Aberdeen to Norway, taking skilled workers from what was once the oil and gas capital of Europe to work in the industry there. Norway has just said that it is going to open up three more existing gas fields, and has announced a licensing round for 70 new licences. Norway incentivises drilling because it recognises how important oil and gas is to its energy security.
Would any Member on the Government Benches like to tell me that the Norwegian Labour Government, by increasing their use and export of oil and gas from the North sea, are making Norway less energy independent? No, of course they are not. It is the UK Labour Government that are making the UK more dependent on Norway for our gas—we send £20 billion to Norway for the privilege of using the same gas from the North sea—and more dependent on liquefied natural gas from Quatar, America and Mexico. That LNG is liquefied, transported and regasified before it can be used here, so is less good for the environment.
Moving on to jobs, I will never understand how anyone can sit on the Labour Benches and not understand the importance of protecting jobs in the oil and gas sector. The Government mention new jobs in renewables. There are new jobs in renewables, but they are not coming on stream fast enough, they are not comparable, and they are not for the same skillsets. Some of those jobs are transferable, but loads are not, and the highly skilled people who have secured our energy security for the last few decades are the ones who are going to struggle to transfer. If Labour wants to say it is happy to sacrifice those jobs, those livelihoods and the communities those jobs live in—particularly in the north-east of Scotland—it can do so, because that is the message it is sending. Those skilled workers are moving abroad and taking with them the skills that will help us with our energy security and energy independence.
Labour talks about price a lot. We understand that the price of oil and gas goes up and down; that is understandable. Contracts for difference allocation round 7—AR7—signed us up to higher prices for 20 years. We have committed to paying those high prices for 20 years, which are higher than what oil and gas has been for the past few years. [Interruption.] I do not need wails; I appreciate that oil and gas is high at the moment, but it is not always high. It has been low—[Interruption.] The Minister for Energy says that that is the issue, and it is the issue if we look at one time horizon. Over the past few years, has oil and gas been low? The gas price has been low, the oil price has been low, and yet we still use it.
We are sacrificing jobs in Aberdeen and the north-east of Scotland and sacrificing our energy security just to deliver green energy, because that is all this Government want to focus on. This Government should be looking at what our neighbours in Norway are doing and seeing how it is seen as a truly energy-independent country because they are still using their oil and gas, because they know they need it—their energy systems and their country are not set up not to use it. The UK is not either. We need it, we must use it, and we should be drilling all we can from the North sea—starting today.