End of day summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
The prime minister said new oil and gas drilling licences for the North Sea would help the UK achieve net zero carbon emissions – and that the plan would strengthen the UK’s energy independence and reduce reliance on hostile states, such as Russia. Sunak, who is visiting Aberdeenshire today, said using domestic oil and gas would be better for the environment than importing it.
The government’s former “net zero tsar” has called for an emergency debate into Rishi Sunak’s decision to grant 100 new licences for oil and gas production in the North Sea. Chris Skidmore, the influential Conservative MP who led the review of the UK’s climate goals, tweeted that the government was on the wrong side of history.
Green groups have criticised Sunak’s plans to issue more oil and gas licences as “dangerously incoherent” as the planet boils. Philip Evans, from the Greenpeace UK climate team, said: “This new announcement is nothing but a cynical political ploy to sow division, and the climate is collateral damage.” Experts also pointed out that his plans will not, as he claims, bring down bills.
Ed Miliband has called the government’s plans for North Sea oil and gas “weak and confused policy”. The shadow climate and net zero secretary said the plan “will do nothing for our energy security and drive a coach and horses through our climate commitments, while continuing to leave us at the mercy of fossil fuel dictators like Putin”.
Scientists have tentatively welcomed Sunak’s decision to fund more carbon capture and storage (CCS), but said it could be a “deal with the devil” that greenwashes oilfields and allows for more oil and gas extraction than can be stored.
The ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 remains government policy, the prime minister has said. Rishi Sunak has been under mounting pressure after more than 40 Conservative MPs and peers wrote to him calling for the deadline to be pushed back.
Downing Street has denied that Rishi Sunak’s language on protecting motorists has changed in the wake of the Uxbridge and Ruislip byelection. Asked whether the Tories’ narrow victory, which came amid local concerns about the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone, had affected the prime minister’s thinking, his press secretary told reporters: “No, not at all.”
Members of the National Education Union, the UK’s largest teaching union, have accepted a 6.5% pay rise for teachers in England and voted to end strike action. The joint NEU general secretary Kevin Courtney has said the government “could and should” have gone further after the teaching union accepted its 6.5% pay offer.
The Labour MP Jess Phillips has said the criminal justice system has suffered from “total collapse and calamity”, with her party claiming that more than 90% of crimes go unsolved. The MP for Birmingham Yardley and shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that criminals had “never had it so good”.
A man seen as one of the key architects of Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 election campaign has been selected by the Conservative party to fight Matt Hancock’s seat at the next general election. Nick Timothy, who supported Brexit, was a special adviser to May in the Home Office during the era of the hostile environment policy that led to the Windrush scandal. He was confirmed as West Suffolk’s Tory parliamentary candidate on Sunday night.
People who have been wrongly convicted should not have to pay “living expenses” for the time they spent in prison, No 10 has said after a man spent 17 years inside for a rape he did not commit. Rishi Sunak thought the practice was unfair and had launched discussions with Home Office officials to “establish the facts”, prompted by the case of Andrew Malkinson, who was freed last week.
We’re closing this liveblog now. Thanks so much for joining us and for all the comments and emails.
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Updated
NASUWT members have accepted a 6.5% pay rise for teachers and school leaders in England, the union has said.
A total of 77.6% of the union’s members had indicated they were willing to accept the pay offer as part of a consultative survey, PA News reports.
However, just 18.4% of the 18,000 respondents said the measures announced by the government to tackle excessive workload were sufficient.
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT general secretary, said:
Teachers and headteachers should benefit from more money in their pockets at a time when they are struggling with rising interest rates, rocketing rents and mortgages and persistent high inflation.
Whilst NASUWT members are willing to accept the STRB pay award recommendation, they do not believe that it is sufficient redress for the impact of more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts, where the value of teachers’ pay has declined by 25%. Furthermore, our members do not agree that sufficient action is yet being taken to address their concerns over excessive workload and long working hours.
We have today written to the education secretary calling on the government to do more to address our members’ demands for pay restoration and immediate action to tackle excessive workload and long working hours.
Updated
The House of Lords conduct watchdog has been asked to reopen an investigation into whether the Conservative peer Lord Chadlington may have breached lobbying rules when he introduced a company that was awarded PPE contracts worth £50m.
The Labour peer George Foulkes has called for the reinvestigation, suggesting the commissioner appears to have been misled by Chadlington, whose real name is Peter Gummer, after the Guardian reported new details about the introduction of the healthcare agency SG Recruitment.
The agency gained its first Covid contract days after it was put into the high-priority “VIP lane” for companies with political connections. Chadlington was a shareholder and paid director of the agency’s parent company, Sumner Group Holdings (SGH).
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) stated in November 2021 that Chadlington was the “source of referral” of SG Recruitment, meaning he had identified the company to the government.
Last year, the Lords commissioner for standards cleared Chadlington of breaching the rules against peers lobbying the government to benefit companies in which they have a financial interest. The commissioner concluded that Chadlington’s “only involvement” had been to provide SG Recruitment’s chief executive, David Sumner, with the email address of another Tory peer, Andrew Feldman, who was advising the DHSC on PPE procurement.
The commissioner said:
The evidence shows that Lord Chadlington’s only involvement in this matter was to provide Mr Sumner with Lord Feldman of Elstree’s departmental email address, which would doubtless have been obtainable from other sources. He does not appear to have ‘referred’ SGH [sic] to the department, nor did he facilitate introductions or seek to leverage his influence as a member of the House of Lords.
Lawyers representing Chadlington have now told the Guardian that he had a conversation with Feldman first, that he suggested SG Recruitment as “a potential candidate” for PPE contracts, and that Feldman gave him his email address to pass on to Sumner.
Chadlington’s lawyers said:
Upon the secretary of state for health’s national call for help at the outset of the pandemic, our client spoke to Lord Feldman, who was assisting the government’s efforts to secure PPE from industry sectors. Our client explained that SG Recruitment Limited (SGR), which he had been informed by Mr Sumner had contractual relationships with the NHS, may be a potential candidate. Lord Feldman suggested that Mr Sumner email him at his DHSC email address, which Lord Feldman provided to our client for that purpose.
Read more from my colleagues David Conn and Rob Evans here:
People who have been wrongly convicted should not have to pay “living expenses” for the time they spent in prison, No 10 has said after a man spent 17 years inside for a rape he did not commit.
Rishi Sunak thought the practice was unfair and had launched discussions with Home Office officials to “establish the facts”, prompted by the case of Andrew Malkinson, who was freed last week.
There was never any DNA linking Malkinson, now 57, to the crime and he always insisted he was innocent, which doubled the amount of time he spent behind bars.
The prime minister’s press secretary said:
In principle, for someone who has been wrongfully convicted, it doesn’t seem fair that they would have to repay or reimburse costs.
Asked why the prime minister had not considered changing the rules, which can be traced back to a 2007 ruling by the House of Lords, they added:
It’s not something that he has necessarily come across … part of a brief that he has never been leading on. But he has been speaking with the Home Office and others in government to establish the facts and to make sure the approach is right and fair.
At the time, judges in the House of Lords decided by a four-to-one majority that those wrongfully jailed must pay back 25% of their compensation.
Disagreeing with the measures, Lord Rodger told the house that it was not hard to see why people would feel they were, in effect, paying for their keep during the long years when they were wrongly deprived of their liberty.
The senior Conservative MP Sir Bob Neill, who is chair of the Commons justice committee, voiced his concern that Malkinson could lose part of his compensation to pay for prison costs.
I think any fair-minded person thinks this is just wrong. It goes back to a tightening of the rules of criminal compensation, or compensation for miscarriages of justice in this case, by the Labour government in 2006.
And the argument that was made was that the public might be potentially offended for forking out money towards people who are cleared on technicalities.
It’s clearly not right that somebody who was deprived of their liberty, because of the failures of the state and its institutions for a number of years, then should pay the state or be obliged to give some money back to the state, for the privilege of having been wrongly incarcerated. That surely offends any kind of sense of justice.
Scientists have criticised the government for using the announcement that it plans to fund more carbon capture and storage (CCS) to distract from the announcement that hundreds of new oil and gas licences will be granted in the UK.
Dr Stuart Gilfillan, a reader in geochemistry at the University of Edinburgh, said:
Whilst it is fantastic to see this much-needed investment in carbon capture and storage, it is extremely disappointing to have it used as a headline grabbing smokescreen to distract from a further oil and gas licensing round.
If Rishi Sunak and his government were truly serious about meeting net zero, then he would mandate the capture and storage of all of the CO2 emissions that will result from these new licences as a condition of them being awarded.
This is the only climate-compatible way for the UK to continue to extract fossil fuels, whilst developing the UK carbon capture and storage expertise urgently needed for a net zero future.
Dr Steve Smith, of the Smith school of enterprise and the environment at the University of Oxford, said it was “unfortunate” and “risky” to choose to make the two announcements together.
He said:
When it comes to public acceptance of carbon capture and storage (CCS), studies show that first impressions are important. If people hear of it first as a delaying tactic, that may stick, even in the face of further information. So it was unfortunate and risky for the PM to announce two new CCS facilities alongside 100 new oil and gas licences, while making some overtly pro-flight and pro-car statements.
Prof Cameron Hepburn, the director of the Smith school of enterprise and the environment, said:
If the government wants to prioritise the environment, energy security and jobs then it should double down on renewables. Solar and wind are already the cheapest forms of electricity in the UK and the faster we transition, the more money we will save.
The evidence so far also suggests that green jobs are likely to benefit from higher wages with less susceptibility to automation. By tying ourselves to fossil fuels for the longer term, we risk being left behind as the world races to a clean-energy future.
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Ed Miliband has called the government’s plans for North Sea oil and gas “weak and confused policy”.
The shadow climate and net zero secretary said:
Every family and business in Britain has paid the price of the Conservatives’ failed energy policy which has left Britain as the worst hit country in Western Europe during the energy crisis – and Rishi Sunak is making the same mistake all over again.
Rishi Sunak’s weak and confused policy will not take a penny off bills – as his own party chair has admitted – will do nothing for our energy security and drive a coach and horses through our climate commitments, while continuing to leave us at the mercy of fossil fuel dictators like Putin.
That is why senior business leaders and Conservative politicians are lining up to point out that Rishi Sunak’s failed energy policy is economic illiteracy.
Only Labour has a plan for energy security, lower bills, and good jobs by making Britain a clean energy superpower and delivering a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea.
This is the guy who has led the UK to being the worst hit of any country in Western Europe by the energy crisis.
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) July 31, 2023
13 years of Conservative failure left this country exposed. Rather than learn his lesson, @RishiSunak is making the same mistake. Here’s why:https://t.co/4JntMzTUSU
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In a video update on Twitter, the joint NEU general secretary Kevin Courtney has said the government “could and should” have gone further after the teaching union accepted its 6.5% pay offer.
He said:
Our emotion is not at all one of gratitude towards the government.
They could and should have settled this matter earlier – they could and should have offered more.
Instead, our emotion is pride in you – pride in the stand you took in voting for industrial action, in taking that action, in joining picket lines and taking part in our demonstrations.
Next year’s pay round is a whole other argument.
Fellow general secretary Dr Mary Bousted added:
Remember it [the government] should go further on a correction on teacher’s pay in next year’s pay round and it should increase school funding again.
📺WATCH: @NEUnion joint general secretaries @cyclingkev and @MaryBoustedNEU, discuss the results of our PayUp! Save our schools campaign re-ballot and pay offer.#PayUpNow #SaveOurSchools pic.twitter.com/cXGxok0FLZ
— National Education Union (@NEUnion) July 31, 2023
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Final preparations are taking place to house migrants on the Bibby Stockholm barge, Downing Street has said, amid reports the floating accommodation block has not received approval from local fire services.
The prime minister’s press secretary told reporters:
The Bibby Stockholm is currently undergoing final preparations including fire safety checks. That’s happening this week to ensure that it complies with all the appropriate regulations. There’s been refurbishment that’s been ongoing to ensure it complies with the marine industry safety regulations.
As you’d expect, we continue to work extremely closely with the local council ... to ensure the right preparations are in place before anyone boards.
Asked about reports that plans to move migrants into RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire had been delayed, she said:
Work is ongoing to open to site at Scampton and we want that work to be done as soon as possible.
I can’t get into running commentary on expected timelines but eventually the site will accommodate almost 2,000 people.
Updated
Members of the National Education Union, the UK’s largest teaching union, have accepted a 6.5% pay rise for teachers in England and voted to end strike action.
Responding to a vote by the NEU to end strike action, the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, wrote on Twitter:
This is good news for teachers, good news for parents and most of all, good news for students.
Updated
Downing Street did not give a timeframe for the Department for Transport’s review of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs).
The prime minister’s press secretary told reporters:
I don’t have any kind of details of timeline as of yet.
Obviously, with any review like this, we would want to conclude it as swiftly as possible, but I can’t pre-empt the kind of scope of the review at this point.
She said that once the “fact-finding mission” had concluded, ministers would decide what “evidence-based action” to take.
Asked whether the government could overrule councils on LTNs, she declined to get into “hypotheticals”.
Updated
Downing Street has denied that Rishi Sunak’s language on protecting motorists has changed in the wake of the Uxbridge and Ruislip by-election.
Asked whether the Tories’ narrow victory, which came amid local concerns about the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone, had affected the prime minister’s thinking, his press secretary told reporters: “No, not at all.”
On his move to review low-traffic neighbourhoods, she said:
The prime minister has always been of the view that local consent is important.
And it’s worth mentioning that a lot of these low-traffic neighbourhoods were introduced during Covid, often without votes or local feedback to them.
They’ve got to work for residents, businesses and emergency services. We want to be giving people the choice on how they travel, not just restricting or making their life difficult for those who rely on cars. And that’s why we’re reviewing the impact of low-traffic neighbourhoods.
I think it’s a perfectly consistent position that the prime minister has always been of the view that, as I said on our energy policy, everything we have to do has to be proportionate and pragmatic.
Updated
Downing Street said more than 100 new oil and gas licences would be awarded in the autumn.
Rishi Sunak’s press secretary said that future rounds were then “normally announced around a year after”.
She said they could not “pre-empt the process” of the next round as it depends on how bidding unfolds but added:
We certainly are very confident that over 100 at least will be issued.
Asked whether there would be hundreds before the next general election, the press secretary said:
The usual way this follows is that once a funding round is launched the licences are issued normally within a year of that time period but I wouldn’t comment on general election timing.
Updated
The UK government’s decision to support 100 new fossil fuel exploration licences shows a total disregard for our environment and for future generations, say the Scottish Greens.
The Scottish Greens climate and energy spokesperson, Mark Ruskell MSP, said:
This is an utterly reckless decision that will leave a long and destructive legacy. It is probably the single most consequential decision Rishi Sunak will make as prime minister and he has chosen the worst possible option.
It shows a total disregard for our environment and for future generations. If these licences go ahead it will be a big leap towards climate chaos.
Climate breakdown is the greatest environmental threat that we will ever face. Our world is on fire. We are already way past the point when we should have been transitioning away from fossil fuels, yet Downing Street is choosing to double down on them.
He added that green energy is the safest, cheapest and cleanest energy available:
We have a huge renewable potential and an abundance of natural resources that any country would envy. Those are the industries we should be supporting.
Updated
Downing Street has insisted the granting of about 100 new oil and gas licences in the UK will be “perfectly compatible” with net zero targets.
A No 10 spokesperson denied that progress on green energy commitments could be undermined by the prime minister’s support for drilling in the North Sea.
Asked whether the UK’s efforts to protect the environment could be “undone” by the current approach, the official said:
I don’t accept that at all.
I think both heading towards our net zero target and achieving it is perfectly compatible with using the resources that we have here at home.
Importing oil and gas, which we are currently doing, from other countries potentially actually releases higher carbon emissions and is more expensive for consumers so it doesn’t make sense.
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Downing Street was asked about a tweet by the Conservative party chair, Greg Hands, last year which suggested extracting more North Sea gas would not lower global prices.
Asked about Hands’s claim in February 2022 that more UK production would not reduce the price of gas, a No 10 spokesperson said:
I’m not sure of that particular tweet but I think what has been clear and has been made clear by the independent North Sea Transition Authority is that the two policy positions are totally compatible.
They admit themselves that beyond hitting net zero, oil and gas will remain a part of the mix of energy that provides for the UK.
Pressed on whether that meant prices would fall, the official said:
Importing oil and gas from other countries, not only would that, necessarily, because you are reducing domestic supply, you are also increasing costs by importing and potentially also increasing carbon emissions because of the importation of the oil and gas.
I don’t see why and the prime minister doesn’t believe that if we have the resources here at home we shouldn’t use them.
Updated
Scientists have tentatively welcomed Sunak’s decision to fund more carbon capture and storage (CCS), but said it could be a “deal with the devil” which greenwashes oilfields and allows for more oil and gas extraction than can be stored.
Myles Allen FRS, a professor of geosystem sciences at the University of Oxford, said:
Great to see much-needed investment in carbon capture, but why does the taxpayer need to foot the bill when the main beneficiaries are precisely those companies looking for new oil and gas licences?
The solution is increasingly obvious: make new extraction conditional on responsible CO2 disposal. At current prices, extractors can certainly afford it.
Scientists have also said the CCS funding should not be connected to new oil and gas licences. Paul Fennell, a professor of clean energy at Imperial College London, said:
I welcome the announcement on carbon capture, which is important for the future and allows some sectors, such as steel and cement, which produce important things which are not easily substitutable by other materials, and which intrinsically produce CO2, to continue. We need every arrow in the armory. I abhor the implicit connection with new oil and gas licences.
Stuart Haszeldine, a professor of carbon capture and storage at the University of Edinburgh, said:
Storage of 2m or 5m tonnes CO2 per year should not become a policy excuse to release additional 10’s or 100’s million tonnes CO2 from development of new oil and gas extraction through many tens of new licences. If Rosebank field (Equinor) goes ahead, that is 200m tonnes of extra CO2, if Jackdaw field (Shell) is developed that is 70m tonnes extra CO2.
Updated
Rishi Sunak says ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars remains government policy
The ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 remains government policy, the prime minister has said.
Rishi Sunak has been under mounting pressure after more than 40 Conservative MPs and peers wrote to him calling for the deadline to be pushed back, PA Media reports.
However, the prime minister said it remained part of his agenda and reiterated his commitment to transition to net zero in a “proportionate and pragmatic way”.
Echoing Sunak, the energy minister Andrew Bowie told Sky News: “We remain committed to ensuring that more people get access to, are able to buy, are able to drive electric and hybrid cars.”
Their comments came as Sunak announced at least 100 new oil and sea gas licences alongside a new carbon capture scheme in north-east Scotland.
Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme about the 2030 ban, Sunak said:
That’s about new cars, not all existing cars. So it’s the sale of new cars. That’s been the government’s policy for a long time. It remains the government’s policy.
But what I have said more generally on my approach, is that we will transition to net zero, I’m committed to it, but we will do it in a proportionate and pragmatic way that doesn’t necessarily add burden or cost to families’ bills, particularly at a time when inflation is higher than any of us would have liked.
And more generally, on motorists, I think actually, this was down recently to the Ulez expansion that your listeners may or may not be familiar about, which I don’t think is the right thing.
I think at a time when, as I said, families are looking at bills and worried about inflation, adding £12.50 on to their life every time they visit the supermarket or a GP or drop their kids off at football practice does not seem to me to be the right thing to do.
Bowie told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
The prime minister has been quite clear we are committed to the 2030 target for the phasing out of new petrol or diesel cars, the sale of that.
That doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to drive a petrol [or] diesel car post-2030 but the sale of petrol [and] diesel cars, we are hoping that our aim is that we will see [it] start from 2030.
We remain committed to that target. We remain committed to ensuring that more people get access to, are able to buy, are able to drive electric and hybrid cars.
Updated
Rishi Sunak says approving new licences for oil and gas drilling 'entirely consistent' with net zero plan
Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to Aberdeenshire, the prime minister said approving new licences for drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea is “entirely consistent with our plan to get to net zero”.
Rishi Sunak said domestic oil and gas saves “two, three, four times the amount of carbon emissions” than “shipping it from halfway around the world”.
Questioned on whether the Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea would be approved, he said:
Licensing decisions are obviously made the normal way but what I’d say is that – entirely consistent with transitioning to net zero – that we use the energy that we’ve got here at home because we’re going to need it for decades.
Updated
A man seen as one of the key architects of Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 election campaign has been selected by the Conservative party to fight Matt Hancock’s seat at the next general election.
Nick Timothy abruptly resigned from his post as May’s chief of staff when MPs put pressure on her to get rid of him, shortly after the party lost its majority in the 2017 vote and had to turn to the Democratic Unionist party to form a government.
Timothy, 43, who supported Brexit, was a special adviser to May in the Home Office during the era of the hostile environment policy that led to the Windrush scandal. He was confirmed as West Suffolk’s Tory parliamentary candidate on Sunday night.
As co-author of May’s election manifesto and its “dementia tax” policy – which put no cap on social care costs but allowed people to keep £100,000 of assets – he was widely blamed by the Tories for the election results.
One Tory MP told the Guardian Timothy had been “instrumental in delivering the worst Conservative election campaign in living memory”.
He went on to write a book, Remaking One Nation: the Future of Conservatism, in 2020, in which he described May’s reaction to the 2017 election results.
“My phone rang. It was Theresa … I could hear the disappointment and hurt and anger in her voice,” he wrote.
“There was terror, too. I had seen or heard her cry before, but this was different. She was sobbing. I remember thinking she sounded like a child who wanted to be told everything was just fine.”
Hancock, the former health secretary, currently represents the constituency as an independent and has said he will stand down at the next general election. He had the Tory whip removed in November when he agreed to appear on the ITV reality programme, I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!
Timothy is understood to have strong family ties to the constituency, which was won by the Tories in 2019 with a majority of 23,000 votes.
A local Conservative councillor, Lance Stanbury, welcomed the selection of Timothy, who had previously tried and failed to be selected for the Meriden constituency in the West Midlands in 2019.
“Delighted, absolutely delighted that Nick has been selected to fight for West Suffolk,” Stanbury told the PA Media news agency.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Sir David King, a former government chief scientific adviser and founder and chair of the climate crisis advisory group, has responded to the government’s announcement:
Rishi Sunak is now breaking openly with the all-party agreement dating back to 2008, which led to the set up of the world’s first climate change committee of parliament.
The proposal to issue at least 100 new oil and gas licences is another drain on our failing economy. The crises covering the [northern hemisphere] now – following four successive summers – means oil, gas [and] coal must be phased out quickly.
And that means this will be another stranded asset. The public will surely see this as a desperate act of electioneering, putting our future at severe risk. Britain can no longer claim to be leading on the climate crisis and that is shameful.
Updated
Green groups say Rishi Sunak's 'international credibility is on the line'
Green groups have criticised Sunak’s plans to issue more oil and gas licences as “dangerously incoherent” as the planet boils.
Philip Evans, from the Greenpeace UK climate team, said:
This new announcement is nothing but a cynical political ploy to sow division, and the climate is collateral damage. Just as wildfires and floods wreck homes and lives around the world, Rishi Sunak’s government has decided to row back on key climate policies, attempted to toxify net zero, and recycled old myths about North Sea drilling.
If Sunak were serious about boosting our energy security while keeping energy bills down, he’d remove the absurd barriers holding back cheap, homegrown renewables and launch a nationwide insulation programme to tackle energy waste in our homes.
Experts also pointed out that his plans will not, as he claims, bring down bills. Jess Ralston, the head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said:
Government is currently subsidising oil and gas companies to drill more in the North Sea. This will not bring down bills as there isn’t enough gas to move the dial on international market prices and the oil and gas industry’s own estimates show the North Sea will continue to decline no matter what the government policy is.
Prioritising oil and gas over cheaper renewables and pushing back regulations on insulation in rental homes, both of which would bring down bills, is against advice from the International Energy Agency, United Nations and Climate Change Committee. And while carbon capture will be an important technology for some industries, like manufacturing, it’s yet to be seen how much it will cost or where it will be most useful.
Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs, added:
Climate change is already battering the planet with unprecedented wildfires and heatwaves across the globe. Granting hundreds of new oil and gas licences will simply pour more fuel on the flames, while doing nothing for energy security as these fossil fuels will be sold on international markets and not reserved for UK use.
Rishi Sunak’s international credibility is on the line. He promised other world leaders the UK would cut carbon by more than two thirds by 2030. His recent announcements on energy and transport look as though he is reneging on the UK’s commitments. The prime minister should stop playing politics with young people’s futures and build the safe, clean economy we urgently need.
Others have said leaders of low-income countries, which have been urged by the UK government and other rich western countries to decarbonise, will be watching this announcement with some surprise.
Oxfam’s climate change policy adviser, Lyndsay Walsh, explained:
Today’s wrongheaded decision is yet another example of the government’s hypocritical and dangerously inconsistent climate policy.
Extracting more fossil fuels from the North Sea will send a wrecking ball through the UK’s climate commitments at a time when we should be investing in a just transition to a low-carbon economy and our own abundant renewables.
As millions of people in low-income countries are pushed deeper into hunger and poverty by a climate crisis they haven’t caused, high-emitting and wealthy countries like the UK can no longer just talk the talk – they must walk the walk.
Updated
Former net zero tsar criticises expansion of oil and gas drilling
The government’s former “net zero tsar” has called for an emergency debate into Rishi Sunak’s decision to grant 100 new licences for oil and gas production in the North Sea.
Chris Skidmore, the influential Conservative MP who led the review of the UK’s climate goals, tweeted a statement in response to the government’s announcement.
He said:
This is the wrong decision at precisely the wrong time when the rest of the world is experiencing record heat waves. It is on the wrong side of the future economy that will be founded on renewable and clean industries and not fossil fuels.
It is on the wrong side of modern voters who will vote with their feet at the next general election for parties that protect, and not threaten, our environment. And it is on the wrong side of history that will not look favourably on the decision taken today.
Worryingly, this decision has also been announced when MPs are on recess, unable to hold the government to account.
I will be writing to the speaker to call for an emergency debate as soon as we return.
Skidmore, a former science minister and advocate of green policies within the Tory party, previously urged ministers to halt the development of the Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea, or risk destroying the UK’s credibility on the climate crisis.
Updated
The Labour MP Jess Phillips has said the criminal justice system has suffered from “total collapse and calamity”, with her party claiming that more than 90% of crimes go unsolved.
The MP for Birmingham Yardley and shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that criminals have “never had it so good”, adding:
People don’t expect anyone to be caught.
She said there was a shortage of detectives in the country and vowed to recruit more by attracting people from other sectors if Labour wins the next general election.
Phillips added:
The Home Office has watched while charging has dwindled over the years so that 90% of crimes currently go unsolved.
Updated
Fossil fuels will continue to play a “major role” in Britain’s energy base for years to come, a Conservative MP has said.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday after the government announced it would approve 100 new licences for oil and gas production in the North Sea, Andrew Bowie, the minister for nuclear and networks, said:
This is about maxing out our oil and gas reserves and that means that we will be much more energy secure and less dependent on hostile actors like Vladimir Putin.
The independent climate change committee understands that fossil fuels will play a major role in our energy base for years to come so we think it’s essential that that fossil fuel comes from British water, ensuring the revenue comes to the British exchequer rather than paying to import, which would have a higher CO2 emission and rely on sometimes hostile foreign powers.
Responding to accusations by the campaign group Greenpeace that the government’s funding for a carbon capture project in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, is “greenwashing”, Bowie said:
I don’t recognise that. We are committed to reaching net zero by 2050.
We were the first parliament in the world to legislate for that. Carbon capturing plays a major role in delivering that.
Updated
The Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA) has criticised the government’s announcement of support for new oil and gas projects in the North Sea.
The REA chief executive, Nina Skorupska, said:
If the government are serious about delivering energy security, while reaching net zero in a pragmatic way, they should be delivering the cheapest forms of generation. This means low-carbon projects that are unaffected by changes in the volatile fossil energy markets, [which are] the cause of both increased energy costs and security concerns.
Instead, today, the government are supporting new fossil fuel exploration while support mechanisms like the US Inflation Reduction Act, and the UK government’s electricity generator levy, a windfall tax on renewables, is seeing the UK attractiveness for low-carbon investment diminish.
Real energy security will be delivered by reinforcing our grid systems and sorting out planning delays so that low-carbon generation can be built quickly.
The development of CCUS (carbon capture, utilisation and storage) should also be targeted at bio-energy applications, not capturing carbon that should stay in the ground. Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage delivers critical negative emissions recognised as essential for getting to net zero.
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New oil and gas licences will bolster the UK’s energy independence and economy for generations, Grant Shapps has said.
In a statement, the energy security secretary said:
Safeguarding energy bills for British families and providing a homegrown fuel for our economy that, for domestic gas production, has around one-quarter the carbon footprint of imported liquified natural gas.
Our next steps to develop carbon capture and storage, in Scotland and the Humber, will also help to build a thriving new industry for our North Sea that could support as many as 50,000 jobs, as we deliver on our priority of growing the economy.
The government should have “another look” at the 2030 ban on the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles as the UK risks “simply becoming even more dependent on China”, Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said.
Speaking to Sky News, the former Tory party leader said the 2030 target was “plucked out of nowhere”, adding:
If you want to get them to clean emissions, you’ve got to do it in a way that still keeps our industry going in the UK.
If we rush to this, what we risk right now is simply becoming even more dependent on China. China is ready to literally flood the market here with cheap electric cars, all their battery companies, which, by the way, are many, and they produce far more batteries than the whole of Europe put together ... They are going to dump those on us.
There’s also issues around security, our ability to switch those batteries off.
He went on:
So it’s important for us to have another look at that 2030 target because it’s pretty arbitrary and Europe, for example, has moved the target back to 2035, America is back at 2035.
We are rapidly becoming the only developed country in the world that is still clinging to an arbitrary target which we probably won’t make, and which is going to destroy much of our industry.
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Key event
Rishi Sunak’s visit to north-east Scotland today will focus on North Sea energy with the intention of drawing a dividing line between the government and Labour’s plan to ban new oil and gas projects.
A Downing Street announcement said the prime minister will meet “key energy industry figures and companies”, and outline policies to ensure energy security.
As well as giving Sunak a relatively rare foray into Scotland, where the Conservatives are seen as vulnerable in the six seats they hold, the visit is also intended as a chance to attack Labour’s plans on energy.
Keir Starmer’s party, which is hopeful of winning back a number of Scottish seats, has pledged to ban drilling for new oil and gas projects in the North Sea, although existing wells would remain operational for decades to come, and make heavy investments in green technologies to create jobs.
Environmental groups and scientists have said an end to new fossil fuel projects is vital to meet net zero goals, but Sunak and his ministers have argued that the ban could leave the UK vulnerable.
The Scottish Greens, the SNP’s partners in government, said that while carbon capture and storage had a role, it “must not be used as a justification for more North Sea drilling, which will have a devastating impact on our environment and take us even closer to climate breakdown”.
Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, said:
Every family and business is paying the price, in higher energy bills, of 13 years of failed Tory energy policy. It is absurd that having left this country so exposed, the Conservative party is asking the public to believe they can fix it.
And it’s telling that while Labour focuses on lower bills and good jobs, Rishi Sunak lurches desperately towards a culture war on climate to appease his split party, losing track of what he believes from day to day, depending on which faction he’s met with.
It’s no way to govern and it’s costing working people.
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The SNP Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, welcomed the UK government’s announcement on funding for the the Acorn carbon capture project in Aberdeenshire.
He told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme:
Whilst I do welcome the fact that we are now in this position, and it is of course excellent news for the north-east of Scotland, I’m very frustrated that it’s taken 18 years to get to this point.
He added:
I think in anything that comes from the UK government the devil will very much be in the detail, but I don’t think anyone can step away from the fact that this is a positive step in the right direction after 18 years of dither and delay.
I guess the key thing now is making sure ... that the UK government back up this announcement today with real progress in terms of timing and the evaluation process.
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Asked how he was travelling to Scotland this morning, a rather grumpy Rishi Sunak, who ended the interview on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme when it reached the five-minute limit imposed by No 10, replied:
I’ll be flying as I normally would.
He then told the Scottish BBC presenter Martin Geissler:
If you or others think that the answer to climate change is getting people to ban everything that they’re doing, just to stop people going on holiday, I think that’s absolutely the wrong approach.
Every prime minister before me has also used planes to travel around the United Kingdom because it’s an efficient use of time for the person running the country so we can keep focusing on delivery for people.
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Rishi Sunak has claimed that the approval of about 100 new North Sea oil and gas licences will help the UK reach its target of meeting net zero by 2050.
Making a visit to Aberdeenshire on Monday, the prime minister stressed his desire to maintain UK fossil fuel exploration, a key political dividing line with Labour, which has said it will stop any new North Sea drilling if it comes to power.
Before the visit, No 10 unveiled a plan for a new round of licences, as well as plans for two new carbon capture and storage facilities, including the Acorn scheme in north-east Scotland, which missed out when two other sites were chosen for such facilities in 2021.
While environmentalists and many scientists have said new fossil fuel projects are incompatible with net zero targets, Sunak told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme that the licences were integral to the plan.
Insisting he remained committed to the 2050 target, and to the deadline of stopping the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, Sunak said:
This is a good story for the UK overall. It’s not about political seats, it’s just about doing the right thing for the country.
A parallel announcement on carbon capture and storage schemes results in the Acorn project in north-east Scotland and Viking in the Humber being picked for development by 2030.
Two earlier projects selected in 2021, one in Humber and Teesside, and the other in Liverpool Bay, are expected to come into use by the mid-2020s.
The announcement on new licences, which was handed to the Times overnight before being released generally on Monday morning, said about 100 were expected to be awarded, with the first confirmed in the autumn.
Read the full story here:
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Rishi Sunak announces hundreds of new oil and gas licences
Rishi Sunak has confirmed hundreds of new oil and gas licences will be granted in the UK.
The prime minister said new oil and gas drilling licences for the North Sea would help the UK achieve net zero carbon emissions – and that the plan would strengthen the UK’s energy independence and reduce reliance on hostile states, such as Russia.
Sunak, who is visiting Aberdeenshire today, said using domestic oil and gas would be better for the environment than importing it.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he said:
Even when we reach net zero in 2050 a quarter of our energy needs will still come from oil and gas, and domestic gas production has about a quarter or a third of the carbon footprint of imported gas.
So not only is it better on our energy security not to rely on foreign dictators for that energy, not only is it good for jobs, particularly Scottish jobs, it is actually better for the environment because there is no point in importing stuff from halfway around the world with two to three times the carbon footprint of the stuff we’ve got at home. That makes absolutely no sense.
This is about is strengthening our energy security for the whole of the United Kingdom.
We’ve seen over the last year the impact of [Vladimir] Putin’s war. We don’t want to be in hock to dictators like that when it comes to our energy, and an important part of guarding against that is investing in our North Sea.
And that’s what today’s announcement is about: making sure that we have future oil and gas licensing rounds.
He said it was “important that we get energy from here at home”, stressing that the sector supports 200,000 jobs.
With the further investment in carbon capture and storage, including the Acorn project, he added: “That’s going to be great for Scottish jobs and help us transition to net zero.”
I will be looking after the politics blog today. If you have any tips or suggestions, please get in touch: nicola.slawson@theguardian.com
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