Conservative rebellion avoided as North Sea oil and gas vote rescheduled
An expected Conservative rebellion over Rishi Sunak’s controversial plans to expand oil and gas drilling was postponed on Thursday after a vote on flagship legislation was rescheduled at the last minute.
The Government decided to pull the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill after MPs were left with only around half an hour for debate after a series of ministerial statements, including on the Post Office scandal, overran.
A new Commons date will now have to be found but it is expected to be within the next two weeks.
The controversial laws had already left the Prime Minister facing another potential by-election defeat, after ex-net zero tsar Chris Skidmore resigned as MP for Kingswood in protest over the plans.
Former cabinet minister Sir Alok Sharma, who was president of the international Cop26 climate summit hosted by the UK, had also said he would not be supporting the Bill.
i understands that a handful of Tory rebels were set to abstain in the first Commons vote on the legislation, which will require the industry regulator to run annual rounds for new oil and gas licences, subject to new emissions and imports tests.
Labour has said it would ban new drilling projects. But the proposals are expected to pass when they come to the Commons.
Yesterday Mr Sharma described the legislation as a “smoke and mirrors” exercise which reinforces the perception that the UK is “rowing back from climate action”.
He said that that the North Sea Transition Authority could already issue drilling licences whenever it found them necessary and so the legislation would change nothing.
Mr Skidmore, a former energy secretary who led the Government’s independent review of Net Zero, yesterday formally submitted his resignation as an MP over the plans. It leaves Mr Sunak potentially facing three by-elections in the coming months.
A group of 30 politicians, including Mr Skidmore and Lord Goldsmith, have also written to Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho urging her and the Government to drop the Bill, saying that it is “diametrically opposed” to the global consensus of moving away from fossil fuels.
It comes after Mr Sunak pushed back the ban on new petrol and diesel car sales from 2030 to 2035 alongside a host of other measures perceived to have rolled back Government commitments to reach net zero carbon emissions.
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said the “new licenses will not increase carbon emissions above our legally binding carbon budgets, but will provide certainty for industry, support 200,000 jobs and bring in tens of billions of tax that we can invest in the green transition and support people with cost of living.”
