ANGELA Rayner today refused to reveal whether Labour would give the green light to the Rosebank oilfield.
Supreme Court judges yesterday controversially sided with eco-activists as they ruled that approval of an oil well near Horse Hill, Surrey, was unlawful.
The judgement has thrown immediate doubt on whether other new oil and gas projects already given government sign-off could go ahead.
Asked about the implications for Rosebank, the Deputy Labour chief told the BBC: “I’m not going to do hypotheticals, but what we have said and what we have set out, is oil and gas is part of the mix for the next three decades, that’s the practicalities of what we face.”
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She added: “But we can’t rely on oil and gas into the future, we have to have a transition to renewables for our energy security, number one, because we’re at the mercy of people like Putin and that’s why energy prices have gone through the roof as well.”
In a landmark ruling on Horse Hill, Supreme Court judges decided that before approving oil projects, town halls must take into account not just the potential pollution from drilling, but also pollution from the oil’s future uses.
This can include pollution caused by people filling their cars with petrol years into the future.
In his judgement, Lord Leggatt said: “In my view, there was no basis on which the council could reasonably decide that it was not necessary to assess the combustion emissions.
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“Given the agreed fact that all the oil produced would be refined, I see no reason why environmental impacts resulting from the process of refining oil should not in principle fall within the scope of the environmental impact assessment for the extracting of oil.”
Labour has been slammed by the Tories and some trade unions for vowing not approve any new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea.
The move would leave thousands of Brits out of work.
But Sir Keir Starmer has pledged not to snatch existing licenses and stop ongoing operations.
Pushed specifically on Rosebank, Ms Rayner refused to guarantee the oil field off the coast of the Shetland would be free to continue.
She said: “Licences that have already been approved will carry on.
“If there’s a decision to be made at the time, then that will come to that secretary of state to make that decision.
“But what we are very clear on is that we can’t rely on it into the future, we have to have a just transition into renewables and Labour is the only party that has a credible plan on how we get there and meet our net zero targets.”
Rosebank was given the go-ahead in September last year and was expected to produce millions of barrels of oil.
At the time it was said the field, which was set for 80 miles off the Shetland Islands, was expected to be producing 69,000 barrels of oil a day in the next three years.
Regulators gave the go-ahead for the joint enterprise between Brit company Ithaca Energy and Norway’s Equinor, which is predicted to yield anything from 350 to 500billion barrels.
Around 1,600 jobs were set to be created for the construction, with 450 people then working on the platforms.
Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said
“The jobs and billions of pounds this is worth to our economy will enable us to have greater energy independence.
“We will continue to back the UK’s oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us transition to cheaper, cleaner energy.”