Michael Shanks

Michael Shanks

Labour — Rutherglen

Speaking in the House of Commons on 21 October 2026

Debate

Jackdaw Gasfield

Contribution

The pathway to net zero by 2050 has to accommodate the fact that we will require oil and gas, one way or another, while we are in that transition. The choices open to the Government are to continue extraction from the North sea, which we will do with existing fuels and existing consented fields, or to import from other places. We are obviously importing from Norway, which has generally cleaner imports than anywhere else, but we also rely on LNG imports, which have a higher carbon intensity. The decision therefore involves a balancing act on how we deal with the requirement for oil and gas from different places, and the Secretary of State’s decision has been made after weighing up all the evidence on the fact that we are able to make this consenting decision within the boundaries of our legally set carbon budgets.

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