The Conservative party plans to maximise extraction of oil and gas in the North Sea if it wins power. Kemi Badenoch intends to overhaul the North Sea Transition Authority, drop the word transition and replace its 12-page mandate with a simple order to extract the maximum possible fossil fuel. Badenoch argued Britain cannot afford to leave hydrocarbons untapped while neighbours extract the same resources, saying prior decarbonisation has coincided with high energy prices. The Conservatives would scrap mandates beyond maximising extraction and prioritise economic growth over a net-zero-by-2050 approach. Labour accused the move of abandoning the net-zero consensus.
We are in the absurd situation where our country is leaving vital resources untapped while neighbours such as Norway extract them from the same seabed. Britain has already decarbonised more than every other major economy since 1990, yet we face some of the highest energy prices in the developed world. This is not sustainable and it cannot continue. That is why I am calling time on this unilateral act of economic disarmament and Labour's impossible ideology of net zero by 2050.
Badenoch said Britain cannot afford not to be doing everything to get hydrocarbons out the ground to boost growth. So, a future Conservative government will scrap all mandates for the North Sea beyond maximising extraction. It is time that common sense, economic growth and our national interest came first, and only the Conservatives will deliver that. We are going to get all our oil and gas out of the North Sea.
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