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The Energy Secretary’s fatwa against fossil fuels owes more to fundamentalism than any rational assessment of our national interest. The name of his department puts ‘energy security’ ahead of ‘net zero’, yet in his pursuit of the latter he has sabotaged the former. Last year, for the first time since the 1960s, not a single new exploratory oil or gas well was drilled in the British sector of the North Sea. Yet, across the maritime border, -Norway continues to exploit its resources to the full. Our Scandinavian neighbour extracted some £50 billion in oil and gas last year – enough to pay for the Royal Navy five times over.

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There is a limit to what the UK can achieve in the Middle East, not least given our shrunken military and diminished diplomatic leverage. The one thing the government can do is insulate our citizens and our economy from geopolitical uncertainty. But instead of putting Britain first, Miliband is elevating his outdated ideology above all our interests. Rather than decommissioning oil and gas production, the Prime Minister should decommission Ed Miliband.

https://spectator.com/article/ed-miliband-must-go/?homepage-tracking=magazine-article-3

Without paywall : https://archive.md/zQV6j

Energy chief warns Britain is ‘staring down the barrel’ of crisis amid war in the Middle East

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/03/05/exc-miliband-must-reopen-north-sea-octopus-boss-says/

The boss of Britain’s biggest gas and electricity supplier has called on Ed Miliband to reopen the North Sea to strengthen the country’s energy supplies.

Greg Jackson, the founder and chief executive of Octopus, urged the Energy Secretary to exploit Britain’s own fossil fuel reserves after war in the Middle East triggered higher oil and gas prices on global markets. Writing for The Telegraph, he warned that Britain is “staring down the barrel” of another energy crisis.

“Global gas prices have doubled since Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, and UK wholesale electricity prices are up about 50pc,” Mr Jackson writes.

“Hikes in energy prices are bad enough, but they feed through to inflation, which in turn raises interest rates, compounding the economic damage.

“The UK needs more sovereign energy, and this requires practical, pragmatic decisions. Ideology, wishful thinking, nostalgia and culture wars don’t provide actual solutions. We should use what’s available from the North Sea.

“While the price is set globally, there’s no point shipping gas from the other side of the world when we have it here.”

The intervention from Mr Jackson, who is not only a supporter of green energy but is also a non-executive director of the Cabinet Office Board, is politically awkward for Mr Miliband.

As well as calling for the Government to reopen the North Sea, Mr Jackson also criticised Mr Miliband’s support for costly net zero schemes such as carbon capture and hydrogen.

“We shouldn’t be paying billions for expensive distractions,” he said. War in the Middle East has heightened calls for Mr Miliband to reverse his ban on new drilling in the North Sea, which has been criticised by the Conservatives, the SNP and trade unions such as Unite.

The conflict has also renewed scrutiny of Labour’s windfall tax, which was discussed by Rachel Reeves during a meeting with oil and gas industry leaders on Wednesday. Following the talks, a spokesman for the Chancellor reiterated the Government’s pledge to scrap the tax by 2030: “The Chancellor is clear that she wants the Energy Profits Levy to come to an end. She has made that promise, and she stands by it.

“Indeed, it was a commitment she wanted to make this week. But the crisis in the Middle East has had real-time consequences on oil and gas prices, and it is right that we respond to this.”

David Whitehouse, of trade body Offshore Energies UK, who attended the meeting, said the Chancellor had asked the industry to work with Treasury officials on a replacement for the windfall tax. “Today’s meeting with the Chancellor followed weeks of in-depth discussions with industry, which took place at the instigation of the Treasury,” he said.

(continued)

Thanks to these punitive policies, we are losing 1,000 jobs a month, squandering £50bn of investment and becoming less secure.

Under Labour, not a single exploration well was drilled in British waters last year – for the first time since 1964. Labour ministers gleefully trumpet that the basin is just in natural decline.

But Norway, which shares the exact same basin, tells a different story. Last year, the country drilled 49 exploration wells and made 21 new discoveries.

Admittedly, my own party has not been perfect. Policies like the windfall tax or mandating the electrification of oil rigs have not helped.

However, when I was energy secretary, I signed off on Rosebank, legislated to protect oil and gas licences and fought against windfall taxes – all in the face of great opposition. Under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, the Conservatives are clear that the oil and gas industry is a national asset and we must do all we can to maximise economic recovery of our own resources.

So what should Reeves have done? First, end Labour’s ban on new licences, abandon the windfall tax and scrap the net zero duties which are hammering our oil and gas sector. We must fast-track permissions for Rosebank and the Jackdaw gas fields, which together could produce up to 2.3 billion cubic metres of gas per year.

We need to look downstream to our oil refineries and heavy industry, which are increasingly endangered. We lost a third of our refineries last year alone.

We have to stop imposing crippling, escalating carbon taxes that are killing British industry.

We need to double down on nuclear, which has the most secure supply chain of any energy source, by streamlining regulations and reversing Labour’s decision to cancel my plans for another large-scale power plant at Wylfa.

We need to be clear-eyed about the fact that a renewable-dominated system, like the one Ed Miliband wants to create, leaves us dangerously exposed to China’s dominance of critical mineral supply chains.

We need to repeal the Climate Change Act, which forces us to subordinate energy security and affordability to decarbonisation.

And lastly, if we want lower reliance on oil and gas, growth, and better living standards, we must make electricity cheaper.......................;

The Energy Secretary is a dangerous fantasist hell-bent on destroying our oil and gas industries

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/03/04/iran-crisis-shows-folly-of-ed-milibands-north-sea-plan/

It shouldn’t have taken an Iranian attack on the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Qatar for us to realise the benefits of being able to produce our own oil and gas. As the world becomes more dangerous, we must ditch fantasy net zero thinking and prioritise our own energy resilience.

This week, the conflict in the Middle East means the Strait of Hormuz – one of the most important shipping routes for oil and gas – is out of action.

Qatar has shut down production, taking a fifth of global LNG supplies out of the market in a single day and sending gas prices to three-year highs.

All of this has shown up our luxury belief that we in Britain are better off keeping our own oil and gas in the ground while making ourselves more reliant on Qatari LNG imports.

First, let’s get the worst of the climate change lobby’s arguments out of the way.

Destroying our own oil and gas production does not mean we will need any less oil and gas. Even the captured Climate Change Committee acknowledges that we’ll need oil and gas for decades to come.

The biggest advocates of electrification, such as Greg Jackson, the founder of Octopus Energy, have said we should back our own oil and gas production because it makes no difference to how much we consume.

If we are going to need it, then, of course, we should get as much as possible from Britain. That is just common sense.

Instead of maximising our own production, we have been sleepwalking into disaster. We’ve allowed the powerful green lobby to demonise an industry that is vital for our national resilience.

Rachel Reeves missed an opportunity on Tuesday at the Spring Statement to reverse the damage that has been wrought on the North Sea.

Ed Miliband, Sir Keir Starmer’s pick for Energy Secretary, is no less than a dangerous fantasist who has been hell-bent on sacrificing our oil and gas production on the altar of net zero. He banned new oil and gas licences and imposed effective marginal tax rates of over 100pc on some companies, leaving the sector in crisis. And for what? So we can increase our imports of higher-emission LNG from the other side of the world by 40pc, while British production is in free fall. The green lobby argues that there is no point drilling more in the North Sea, because “all of our gas is sold on international markets”.

This is nonsense. Every single molecule of gas that we extract from the North Sea goes into our pipes, in recent years accounting for half of our supply.

Net zero is the answer to Middle East energy crisis, says Business Secretary

‘Doubling down on renewables’ will reduce Britain’s exposure to oil and gas, says Peter Kyle

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/03/03/net-zero-answer-middle-east-energy-crisis/

Britain must “double down” on net zero after the Iran crisis sent energy prices soaring, the Business Secretary has said.

Peter Kyle said building more renewables such as solar and wind would help reduce the country’s exposure to oil and gas coming from “parts of the world which are fundamentally unstable”................

Mr Kyle said on Tuesday: “Doubling down on renewables is, yes, right for climate change, it’s, yes, right for jobs.

“It is also essential because we keep on seeing these lived examples of how instability, through regional instability, is creeping into our energy prices, for which the British Government has no agency.”

The transition to green energy was “about sovereignty,” Mr Kyle added.......On Tuesday, Mr Kyle dismissed calls to maximise domestic production this decade, arguing it could “never sustain the whole market in the UK” and it would “exacerbate the exposure we have at times like this.”

It came despite speculation that ministers could lift the windfall tax on oil and gas producers, known as the energy profits levy, which has an effective rate of 78pc. In her Spring Statement to the Commons on Tuesday, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, said she would meet North Sea business leaders on Wednesday to discuss the implications of the war in the Middle East.

Separate documents published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) revealed that the windfall tax was on track to be retired early, in mid-2027 instead of 2030, resulting from its “floor” mechanism being automatically triggered.

This was based on forecasts that predicted gas and oil prices would fall over the next five years by 15pc and 3pc respectively, breaching levels that would automatically mean the windfall tax would be dropped.

However, because of the steep price rises this week, there are now questions over whether that prediction is already out of date.

After the Chancellor’s statement, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said Ms Reeves’s top priority must be to get rid of taxes on North Sea oil and gas.

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Eight former UK energy ministers have called for the government to curb restrictions and taxes on the North Sea oil and gas industry, arguing that current policy is worsening energy security while doing little to cut global carbon emissions. The cross-party group — which includes former Tory energy secretary Amber Rudd and one-time Labour business and energy secretary Lord John Hutton — expressed their “deep concern” over the decline of UK oil and gas production. “The premature curtailment of domestic production is not primarily the result of geology but of policy decisions made by both Labour and Conservative governments,” they said in a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. “Energy security is national security. Without urgent reform we will become increasingly reliant on imported liquefied natural gas.” They called for the government to end sooner the windfall tax on the oil and gas sector and to drop the ban on new exploration licences in the North Sea.

“With such substantial resources still available to the UK, it makes no sense at all to pursue policies which will only increase our energy imports,” former Tory energy minister Charles Hendry told the FT. “We are calling on the Government to allow new drilling licences that will maintain UK energy security, protect jobs, generate revenue and attract investors back to the North Sea.”

The letter adds to calls on the UK government to change course on the North Sea, including from industry lobbyists, the GMB industrial union and the Tony Blair Institute think-tank. ..........Labour argues that the North Sea is in natural decline after decades of production and it is trying to help the sector evolve by moving into areas such as offshore wind and carbon capture. Energy secretary Ed Miliband has also said that increasing drilling in the North Sea would not cut bills as energy prices are set on the international market. Supporters of Labour’s policies also argue that Britain should set an example in showing how to shift from oil and gas to renewable energy. But critics say the policies have accelerated the natural decline of the ageing North Sea basin, leaving the UK vulnerable and more reliant on imports because it still uses oil and gas for about 75 per cent of its total energy needs.

Even if Britain were to reach net zero by 2050, the country is still expected to use some fossil fuels, with the emissions captured and stored.

The letter’s signatories also include Graham Stuart and Greg Hands, energy ministers in the last Conservative government; Brian Wilson, Labour energy minister in the early 2000s; Tim Eggar, who was a Tory energy minister in the 1990s and later chaired the North Sea Transition Authority Regulator until 2024; and Fergus Ewing, former energy minister in the Scottish government. ............

Miliband’s crippling net zero agenda is undermining Britain’s fight against Putin

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/01/miliband-net-zero-putin-energy/

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If Britain is to deter Putin we must rebuild our hard power through reindustrialisation, higher defence spending and rearmament at pace and scale.

Credible deterrence means peace through strength. But we cannot meet our pre-war needs while Britain endures the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world and our energy-intensive industries contract month by month. Hard power is not summoned by ministerial decree; it is forged in factories, steelworks, petrochemical plants, shipyards and data centres. High energy costs and domestic policy have already rendered key production uneconomic: we no longer, for example, produce ammonia at scale, a critical feedstock for both fertiliser and explosives. Primary steel-making is another sector in jeopardy.

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In light of these realities, Britain’s energy strategy must be aligned with its defence priorities. At a minimum, that means scrapping the statutory net zero target that locks policy into a single trajectory irrespective of geopolitical context; expanding domestic oil and gas production, both onshore and offshore; lifting the ban on new coal extraction where it supports steelmaking; accelerating new nuclear construction at scale; and cancelling Ed Miliband’s mission to make weather-dependent generation the backbone of the system and raise overall system costs.

Now is not the time for half-measures or incremental tinkering at the margins. A country that chooses structural energy scarcity cannot simultaneously claim to be rebuilding hard power. Keeping the status quo would amount to economic disarmament.

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The lesson is not simply that energy matters. It is that deterrence requires industrial grade power. That means scale, reliability, security and dispatchable capacity. Dense fuel that can be stored. And affordable systems that are resilient under sustained and intense pressure. In the US, they speak of the factory as the weapon. They can afford to do so because they sit atop energy abundance.

But after decades of short-sighted energy policy, Britain and much of Europe do not have that luxury. For us, energy is the weapon.

Labour is gaslighting Britain with its claims on energy bills

The Government’s costs cut calculations don’t stand up to the simplest of scrutiny

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/bills/energy/labour-gaslighting-britain-with-energy-bill-claims/

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It may be perfectly obvious to everyone else, but those in charge of running the country remain wilfully oblivious to the fact that we cannot rein in our energy costs while aggressively pursuing destructive green policies. Ofgem data show that £106 of the average bill will still go to environmental and policy subsidies.

While leaders across Europe are waking up to the dangers of blindly pursuing climate goals and the urgent need for the Continent “to stand on its own two feet when it comes to energy supply”, Britain’s fanatical Energy Secretary Mr Miliband is refusing to relax his net zero targets.

The Conservatives (who under previous management have been committed climate advocates themselves) have condemned Mr Miliband’s strategy as “an unforgivable act of economic self-harm”.

A report published on Monday by the Centre for Policy Studies puts the extent of this self-harm in context. A British household currently pays 23pc more for energy than those in any major economy in Europe, while British industry pays a whopping 87pc more than its international competitors.

Devastatingly, Britain now has among the highest industrial energy prices in the world with “many of the Government’s policies [...] making things worse rather than better”.

The report makes a further point which is worth highlighting. It is that under successive governments, there has been a “fundamental shift in the nature of the British energy market – namely, that it is no longer much of a market at all”. The two big political parties – cheered on by the smaller ones in Parliament – united in an interventionist consensus of removing market mechanisms and price signals, leaving the energy market dangerously exposed to the short-termism and short-sightedness of politicians.

And so, in an ideological frenzy, and abandoning all sense of realism and pragmatism, administrations of every colour and persuasion over the best part of the past two decades have added mercilessly to energy bills.

Much has been written about the morality of the market, with critics accusing it of perpetuating injustice and exploitation.

Ironically, when the alternative is entrenching centralised power in the hands of politicians, it is the market which offers hope of limiting those powers. I pray that the next right-wing party to enter Downing Street brushes up on its Adam Smith.

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