A group of MPs has condemned the government’s plan to maximise oil and gas production in the North Sea as “political theatre”, warning it contradicts agreements made on the international stage.

At the weekend, 30 cross-party MPs and peers wrote to the energy security secretary, asking her “in the strongest possible terms to withdraw” the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which is to be debated in the commons later.

Sir Alok Sharma, the former cabinet minister who ran the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, did not sign the letter, but today also criticised the bill.

Speaking on the Today programme, he called it a “smoke and mirrors” exercise that reinforces the perception that the UK is “rowing back from climate action”.

Caroline Lucas MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change (Climate APPG), which organised the letter, said the bill would “do nothing to deliver energy security, or reduce household bills, but will threaten the delivery of our climate and nature targets”.

According to government figures, 80% of oil extracted in the UK is exported.

The bill would require the industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), to run annual licencing rounds for new oil and gas projects.

The government says this would increase investor confidence and make the UK more energy-independent, as well as generating funds for public services or the switch to cleaner energy.

But the NSTA in September said the bill was “not necessary”.

It already has the power to issue licences as often as it likes – and there have been annual licensing rounds for most of the past decade.

The letter today called the bill – announced last year as the government re-set its climate stance – a piece of “political theatre”.

The signatories said the government should instead be “increasing the supply of low-cost renewables and implementing energy efficiency measures, both of which would genuinely lower consumer bills and have strong public support”.

“New oil and gas licensing rounds will have very little impact on the UK’s energy supply and security, primarily because most of the UK’s gas has already been burned,” it said.

Offshore bill ‘diametrically opposed’ to COP28 pledge

The letter is signed largely by MPs from the Labour party, which has pledged to stop granting new oil and gas projects.

Former Conservative environment Minister Zac Goldsmith, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper MP, and former government net zero tsar, Chris Skidmore MP also added their names to the list.

Chris Skidmore announced on Friday he would resign early over the bill, saying: “I can no longer stand by. The climate crisis that we face is too important to politicise or to ignore.”

In December, as the UK rounded out its second-warmest year on record, the UK signed a pledge at the COP28 climate summit to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

“But this bill, and the government’s commitment to “max out” the North Sea’s declining oil and gas reserves, is
diametrically opposed to that agreement,” the letter added.

The government’s climate advisors, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) said in June that although the UK “will need some oil and gas” until it reaches its net zero emissions target, “this does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields”.

A department for energy security and net zero (DESNZ) spokesperson said the UK will “still need oil and gas for decades to come, even when we reach net zero in 2050”.

They added: “It makes sense to make the most of our domestic supply, rather than shipping in liquefied natural gas with four times the emissions than domestically produced gas.”

“These 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. “