Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair has urged Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to scrap the moratorium on new oil fields in order to deliver a £165 billion boost to the British economy.
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) for Global Change says that together with the energy profits levy, or windfall tax, Labour is destroying jobs and not significantly moving the dial on tackling climate change.
The think tank says that lowering the EPL and granting more licences would also reduce the UK’s dependency on foreign imports and security risks.
Its report argues that the government’s clean power plan is “leading the UK in the wrong direction” and is “climate theatre” rather than “climate leadership”.
It echoes comments at Davos last month by Donald Trump who said: “The United Kingdom produces just one-third of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999 – think of that, one-third – and they’re sitting on top of the North Sea, one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world, but they don’t use it, and that’s one reason why their energy has reached catastrophically low levels with equally high prices.”
The TBI report states: “This is not about slowing the transition or denying the direction of travel – it is about making the transition governable.
“An energy strategy that ignores revenue, security and political consent in pursuit of symbolic purity will not endure – and it will not deliver the climate outcomes it promises.”
It claims renewable energy is too expensive, though critics say it is still significantly cheaper than building gas-fired power stations.
New onshore wind has been agreed at a price of £72/MWh and new solar at £65MWh – both less than half the £147/MWh cost of building and operating new gas power stations. New offshore wind, at £91/MWh, is about 40% cheaper than new gas.
Nuclear power, which is also promoted by the think tank, is likely to cost more than £133/MWh and would take many more years to build.
Environmental campaigners say further North Sea production would make little difference to the UK’s energy security and would not reduce energy bills.
Today both the Scottish Labour leader and the Scottish Liberal Democrats reiterated their commitment to overturning the SNP’s ban on new nuclear energy and have called for small modular reactors to be built in Scotland.
Analysis by the Nuclear Industry Association claims Scotland is missing out on 5,000 jobs due to the SNP’s ban on new nuclear.
LibDem economy spokesperson Jamie Greene said: “Traditional nuclear plants are not without their drawbacks, but small modular reactors have the potential to change the game.
“They could provide the perfect complement to Scottish renewables by providing a reliable baseline for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
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