North sea oil and gas production has helped us to fund our public services, such as the national health service, through the taxes it has generated which are worth hundreds of billions of pounds. It has improved our national security by reducing our dependence on imports from other countries. It has bettered our energy security by providing a reliable
supply of gas and oil, fuels that will continue to play an important role in our energy mix, particularly for heating and transport, as we become a lower carbon economy. Crucially, the North sea also sustains hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs in Scotland and the north-east of England and in world-class supply chain businesses right across the country.
For these reasons there has been a cross-party consensus for some considerable time that we should do everything we can to protect those jobs and to continue to maximise investment in our North sea oil and gas industry. The incredibly tough economic conditions faced by businesses operating in the waters off our shores because of the major fall in the price of oil only underlines the need for parties across this House to work together to get on and implement the recommendations of the independent review produced by Sir Ian Wood.