Starmer accused of 'playing footloose' with North Sea oil and gas as he announces green energy plan

The Labour leader confirmed they wouldn’t revoke any fossil fuel extraction licences due to be granted this autumn - which includes areas of the southern North Sea, off Yorkshire.

He proposes instead investing heavily in renewable sources such as wind and also in nuclear power.

However the offshore sector say Starmer doesn’t understand how the industry works and claims it will be facing a “cliffedge” as Labour proposes a ban on new North Sea oil and gas exploration.

They say a ban would be “playing footloose” with energy security at a time when Russia is waging war in Ukraine. Currently there are 280 active gas and oil fields of which around 180 would close by 2030. The sector employs more than 200,000 workers.

UK operators produce 40 per cent of domestic gas and 60 per cent of domestic oil.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Starmer said: “There are dwindling supplies of oil and gas, 90 per cent of gas is either extracted or accounted for. There has to be change – no one really argues with that. We made a historic mistake with coalfields, where there was no one planning for the transition.

"People listening will know first hand that communities are still feeling the effects of that. I’m not prepared for that to happen.”

In a speech later in Leith he said his plans for clean energy would "create good jobs, well-paid jobs, half a million new jobs", including 50,000 in Scotland.

His programme, he claimed, "will power us forward towards net zero, generate growth right across the country, end the suffocating cost-of-living crisis, and get Putin's boot off our throat with real energy security."

Starmer said they would be amending planning regulations that have made it virtually impossible to build new onshore windfarms in the last decade.

They would also negotiate with communities over wind farm developments offering “lower bills or investments in local projects” as inducements.

CEO David Whitehouse of OE UK, the trade body for the offshore energies industry, said they welcomed the commitment to existing licences but remain “very concerned” about a ban on new licences.

He said: “An outright ban would be playing footloose with energy security at a time where war is raging in Russia. Surely this is not the right time for that policy.

"An outright ban would undermine the very people, the very skills, the very investors that we need to deliver that clean energy future that I think we all want.”

Left of centre think-tank IPPR welcomed the plans saying there was an “emerging global consensus on employing a muscular green industrial strategy to capitalise on the economic benefits of the race to net zero”. Associate director Luke Murphy said: “The longer the UK delays, the further it will lag in the global green race”.