IscoBusquet asks: Why does the ‘energy sovereignty’ argument for expanded North Sea oil drilling keep coming back again and again despite the fact that there is no way the UK can realistically achieve it in that way?

Jill:

I fully empathise with the frustration in this question. Most credible voices in this debate agree that the UK couldn’t be entirely self-sufficient in oil and gas if the government did more to support the declining North Sea basin, or that greater energy security would mean significantly lower energy market prices.

But energy sovereignty matters in the North Sea debate because oil and gas still provided 75% of the UK’s primary energy needs last year. There are still 23m homes which use a gas boiler, and almost half of the gas which we use to cook our meals and heat our homes comes from the UK’s North Sea gas fields.

Thankfully the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels will fall as we electrify transport and industry, replace gas boilers with heat pumps and use low-carbon generation instead of gas plants. But the UK will still rely on oil and gas in significant amounts for decades, even under the most ambitious decarbonisation scenarios. As Andy Burnham put it recently: “The question isn’t whether Britain will still be using oil and gas, the question is where does it come from.”

Advocates for North Sea production – including the boss of Renewable UK, Octopus Energy, and the outgoing chair of GB Energy – tend to argue in favour of the economic and climate benefits of producing oil and gas domestically. But during times when global energy supplies are used as a geopolitical weapon, energy sovereignty is still worth discussion, I think.