Kemi Badenoch vows Tories will back draining every drop of oil and gas from North Sea
Tory leader will use speech in Aberdeen to “call time” on the “impossible ideology of net zero”
UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged she will “scrap all mandates for the North Sea beyond maximising extraction”.
Ms Badenoch will use a speech in Aberdeen this week to state she is “calling time” on the “unilateral act of economic disarmament” of Labour and the SNP pursuing a just transition and back away from the “impossible ideology of net zero by 2050”.
The Tory leader’s comments are in line with her predecessor Rishi Sunak, who used a visit to the North East in 2023, while he was prime minister, to call for North Sea resources to be “maxed out” - but the details strike Ms Badenoch’s biggest departure yet on net zero, and come amid pressure from Nigel Farage’s Reform party who has called for the net zero strategy to be torn up.
The Labour UK government is still officially pondering whether to continue a policy of maximum economic extraction - where all oil and gas is harnessed, regardless of economic impact.
But it is unlikely that the UK government will continue the policy, given its pledge, established under Boris Johnson’s Tory establishment, to reach net zero by 2050 and Keir Starmer’s vow to end issuing new oil and gas licences.
Four years ago, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon ended the Scottish Government’s support of maximum economic recovery, insisting that “we must accept that unlimited recovery of hydrocarbons is not consistent with meeting the aims of the Paris Agreement”.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Ms Badenoch will use a speech to be delivered in the UK’s home of oil and gas, to vow to abolish all environmental restrictions on fossil fuel extraction.
Although the Conservative leader has suggested a move away from the UK’s net zero strategy, a stance shared by Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, this would mark Ms Badenoch’s clearest move away from the policy yet.
Scottish Conservative deputy leader, Rachael Hamilton, told the BBC she supported Ms Badenoch’s position and insisted it was “nothing to do with anything Reform is saying”.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Ms Badenoch will announce that the Tories intend to completely overhaul the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which oversees the issuing of licences.
The party would reportedly delete the entirety of the NSTA’s current 12-page mandate and replace it with a single instruction to “maximise the extraction of our oil and gas” and remove the word “transition” from the body’s title, which was added by Boris Johnson in 2022.
READ MORE: Rosebank and other North Sea oil and gas fields could be given green light under new guidelines
Ms Badenoch said: “We are in the absurd situation where our country is leaving vital resources untapped whilst neighbours like 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.”
She added: “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.
“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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