Contributions
1,014 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI take the hon. Lady’s first point with a pinch of salt, after her second point that this comes as a hammer blow to the community. There is no hammer blow; those jobs have been…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryWe recognise that the energy profits levy will come to an end and have consulted on what the future of that looks like with industry. It is a matter for the Chancellor to outline…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI was going to say that that might be a note of consensus across the House, but I remembered that the SNP has an ideological objection to nuclear in Scotland, so it will not…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryWe will respond to the consultation on the future of licensing in due course. This Government were elected on the manifesto commitment to not issue new licences to explore new…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryThe House will understand that I will not be drawn on applications that are currently awaiting decision, so I will not comment on that specific application. On my hon. Friend’s…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI thank the hon. Gentleman for his tone and I accept the point that he makes. As I have said, we can be clear that there is a viable future for those 2,000 workers and we should…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryMy hon. Friend is always a great champion for the industry. Although we often talk, quite rightly, about Aberdeen and north-east Scotland, she is right to champion her own…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryPerhaps I should switch the question back: for how many years have we already been importing oil and gas? That gets us to the fundamental point. The Conservatives want to pretend…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI am not sure that there was a hugely coherent argument there. The hon. Gentleman seems to say that the future might be in clean energy jobs, but he says, “They might not be…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryMy hon. Friend is right to highlight that this is a huge opportunity, which the previous Government talked about a lot but did not actually move forward on delivering. In the…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI thank the hon. Gentleman for the engagement we have had on this issue. Obviously, the failure of the company that was previously running the Prax Lindsey oil refinery has had a…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI thank my hon. Friend for his question, and particularly for mentioning retraining. We see huge opportunities for people who are in the middle of careers to transfer into the…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI agree with the hon. Lady on the wider point, which is that—as I outlined in my opening answer—Petrofac has not had its troubles to seek. She has outlined a number of those…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryFirst, I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s recognition—which we seldom hear from his party’s Front Benchers these days—that this is a transition, and that we want the economic…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryWe know that winter has come when the hon. Gentleman turns up in his lovely knitted jumpers; it is a pleasure to see them back again. He and I have had a number of conversations…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryAs I have said in a number of answers, the UK arm of Petrofac is a successful and growing business. Its holding company went into administration today due to a number of factors,…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryI thank the right hon. Gentleman for how he has put the question. Energy security is at the heart of what we are trying to do, because our exposure to fossil fuels is what led to…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryThe hon. Lady rightly takes every opportunity to ask me about the range of energy issues in her constituency, and I thank her for that. We have concluded the small modular reactor…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryNo, I do not. The clean power that we are trying to build will enable us to ensure that we remove gas as the price setter on our system. At present, gas sets the price 80% of the…27 Oct 2025HANSARDNorth Sea Oil and Gas IndustryLet me just challenge the premise of that question once again. Petrofac’s UK arm has not gone under; it is working today as it did yesterday and the day before and the day before…27 Oct 2025