UK Parliament / Open data

Energy Bill [Lords]

Proceeding contribution from Amber Rudd (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Monday, 18 January 2016. It occurred during Debate on bills on Energy Bill [Lords].

I am going to make some progress on those two things and then I will take a further intervention.

The North sea oil and gas industry is still of huge strategic and economic importance to the United Kingdom. It has been the UK’s largest industrial investor for many decades, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs, especially in Scotland. Since the 1970s, the industry has paid more than £300 billion in production taxes. In 2014, the UK continental shelf produced oil and gas equivalent to well over half the UK demand, but as the basin has matured, oil and gas has become more difficult and more expensive to access. That has been brought into sharp focus of late with the sudden and sustained fall in the oil price, which is putting considerable pressure on the industry to create a more competitive cost base and increase efficiency. As a result, 2014-15 saw falling revenues and falling investment—regrettably, we are also seeing job losses. In order to continue to attract investment and safeguard the future of this vital national asset, the Chancellor set out a significant package of tax reforms for the industry in the March 2015 Budget. We went further in the summer Budget, with measures expected to increase production by 15% by 2020. In the long term, a sustainable economic future for the North sea offshore industry will be achieved only if we can maximise oil and gas recovery. That is why the last Government set up the Wood review, and Sir Ian reported that with the right strategy in place, the recovery of North sea reserves can be boosted by an additional 3 billion to 4 billion barrels over the next 20 years.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

604 c1152 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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