Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill: Proposed UK law won't cut bills but will damage Scotland's efforts to become clean energy superpower – Deidre Brock and Tommy Sheppard

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill sends a damaging signal to the world’s investors that the UK isn’t interested in clean energy

Offshore wind energy could help turn Scotland into a clean energy superpower (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Westminster has no plan to fix the country's broken energy system. Its latest scheme – the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which introduces annual oil and gas licensing rounds and is currently progressing through the UK Parliament is a piece of political theatre that will achieve nothing but harm.

The UK Energy Secretary herself, Claire Coutinho, has publicly admitted the legislation will not lead to lower energy bills. Nor will it improve Scottish, or indeed UK, energy supplies. The North Sea is a declining basin, meaning that new licences are set to provide roughly four – yes, just four – days’ worth of gas a year between now and 2050. And as the Tories now concede, companies such as Equinor, responsible for the development of the Rosebank oil field, are under no obligation to sell their reserves to the UK. Most of what is drilled is shipped abroad.

This Bill sends a damaging signal around the future of the UK’s energy system. It tells the world’s investors that the UK isn’t interested in the clean investment and jobs that come from transitioning away from oil and gas. It holds Scotland back from being a clean energy superpower. It is the worst of all worlds.

Because of this, we have joined more than 30 cross-party MPs and peers on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change in urging the UK Government to withdraw the Bill.

The North Sea has been Westminster’s plaything for too long. This UK Government poses a tangible threat to Scotland’s shift to clean power, to cheaper bills and a planet worth handing down to our children. Enough is enough. This Bill must be halted.

Deidre Brock is SNP MP for Edinburgh North and Leith and Tommy Sheppard is SNP MP for Edinburgh East