Green energy entrepreneur calls on UK to subsidise North Sea oil and gas firms
One of Britain’s leading green industrialists has called on the government to offer subsidies to North Sea oil companies to help support a “just transition” to renewables that protects energy industry workers.Dale Vince, a Labour donor, urged ministers to “optimise” the remaining resources of the declining oil basin as the UK reduces its reliance on fossil fuels.The party has banned new North Sea oil and gas projects.The founder of Ecotricity spoke out a week after his fellow green entrepreneur Greg Jackson, the founder of Octopus Energy and a Cabinet Office adviser, backed calls to restart North Sea drilling.The Labour party swept to power in 2024 with a pledge to halt new drilling licences in the North Sea, and it plans to keep the windfall tax imposed during rocketing oil and gas prices in place until 2030.
Vince said the government should scrap the windfall tax and instead offer subsidies to oil companies that guarantee a minimum price for the barrels of oil and gas they produce.“Our North Sea is in decline, let’s protect it during the transition and optimise our use of the resources that are left,” he said.“It’s time for Labour to put its arms around the North Sea and support operators with existing licences.Putting fossil fuels on an equal footing with renewables by giving them a stable price is the key to a just transition.”Offshore Energies UK, which represents the North Sea industry, declined to comment on whether Vince’s proposals would be welcomed by oil and gas companies.
A government spokesperson said the proposal was “not under consideration.We are driving forward our mission to become a clean energy superpower, to cut bills for good.”They added: “We are delivering a fair and orderly transition in the North Sea to drive growth and secure tens of thousands of skilled jobs, with the biggest ever investment in offshore wind and three first-of-a-kind carbon capture and storage clusters.”Jackson said last week that relying on North Sea oil and gas would have a smaller climate impact than relying on costly imports from the US and the Middle East, which release more emissions during production and transportation than homegrown fossil fuels.“When we’re shipping LNG, liquefied natural gas, around the world, it is a lot dirtier than using locally produced gas,” Jackson told the Telegraph.
“British gas producers won’t be selling it any cheaper than the global market.But it is cleaner and it reduces the backlash against climate policy.I’ve got no problem with it.”The International Energy Agency said in 2021 that there needed to be no new fossil fuel projects if the world is to stay within safe limits of global heating and meet the goal of net zero emissions by 2050.However, the global energy watchdog later clarified that continued investment in existing oil and gas supply would be “essential” in a net zero scenario to ensure that oil and gas supply does not fall faster than the decline in demand.
The green industry leaders’ comments on the North Sea come amid growing pressure from opposition parties to back the industry, which supports about 130,000 jobs and contributed more than £6bn in tax receipts to the government in the last financial year and £9bn the year before.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, said the party would aim to “maximise extraction” of oil and gas in the North Sea if it won the next election.Reform UK has also promised to reverse Labour’s ban as a “day one” priority if it comes to power.The Guardian reported over the summer that senior government advisers had told North Sea investors that new drilling could still move ahead despite the election promise to ban it, provided the projects were close to existing pipeline infrastructure and did not extend into “greenfield” areas.“Myself and a number of colleagues have been told that the government is moving towards the idea of allowing new licences,” one energy investor said.
The source said that while Treasury officials were open to considering future North Sea oil and gas projects, the plans were unlikely to be well received by Ed Miliband, the secretary of state of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero,Miliband reportedly refused to leave his post in Keir Starmer’s reshuffle last week,ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, who first reported the claims, said it was “one part of the reshuffle that didn’t quite go Starmer’s way”,The headline and introductory text of this article were amended on 11 September 2025 to clarify what Dale Vince is urging the government to do,We regret that an earlier version said he was calling on the government “to allow new North Sea oil and gas projects”; in fact, he was calling for a guaranteed minimum price for the oil and gas produced by existing North Sea fields.
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The drugmaker AstraZeneca has paused a planned £200m expansion of its Cambridge research site, completing a depressing week for the UK pharmaceutical industry.The decision by the UK’s largest company means none of its much-trumpeted £650m investment package in the UK – which was originally announced in March 2024 – is proceeding.The now stalled £200m Cambridge project had been expected to create 1,000 jobs. In January, AstraZeneca scrapped plans to invest £450m in its vaccine manufacturing facility in Speke, Merseyside, citing a cut in government support, after months of negotiations.An AstraZeneca spokesperson said on Friday: “We constantly reassess the investment needs of our company and can confirm our expansion in Cambridge is paused
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Marcus Beard’s article on artificial intelligence slopaganda (No, that wasn’t Angela Rayner dancing and rapping: you’ll need to understand AI slopaganda, 9 September) highlights a growing problem – what happens when we no longer know what is true? What will the erosion of trust do to our society?The rise of deepfakes is increasing at an ever faster rate due to the ease at which anyone can create realistic images, audio and even video. Generative AI models have now become so sophisticated that a recent survey showed that less than 1% of respondents could correctly identify the best deepfake images and videos.This content is being used to manipulate, defraud, abuse and mislead people. Fraud using AI cost the US $12.3bn in 2023 and Deloitte predicts that could reach $40bn by 2027
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Records tumble as England thrash South Africa by 146 runs: second men’s T20 international – as it happened
I’ll leave you with Simon Burnton’s report – night night.I’m pretty lost for words! The way [Salt and Buttler] started the night off was just phenomenal. Me and Jos were in the field and we both said that we never thought anybody would get 300. But with the batting line-up we’ve got, there aren’t many heights we can’t reach.[On Salt v Duckett v Smith at the top of the order] There are some tough decisions to be made
Records tumble as Phil Salt’s stunning ton leads England to T20 rout of South Africa
England made history, and for the first time more than 300 runs, on an extraordinary night in Manchester as they buried South Africa under a mountain of runs and shredded statistics. Their highest T20 total was turbocharged by a brilliant opening stand of 126 between Phil Salt and Jos Buttler and by their highest individual score, Salt knocking himself off the top of that chart with an unbeaten 141. Within a week and against the same opponents they have set new national records for winning margins in both one-day internationals and now T20s, the final difference here an almost comic 146 runs.Salt described his evening as “really good fun” but the experience for Shukri Conrad, South Africa’s head coach, was anything but. He described a bowling performance that – having invited England to bat first – “was way off, bereft of ideas” as England were allowed to plunder 30 fours and 18 sixes en route to a score of 304 for two, with nearly twice as many boundaries (48) across the innings as there were dot balls (25)
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