John Healey has been urged to back the North Sea in his first Budget
John Healey should cut green taxes, slash environmental red tape and back North Sea oil in his first Budget, opposition parties have urged.
The Conservatives warned the Chancellor against using taxpayers’ money to help poorer households on welfare with rising energy bills, instead calling for measures to cut the costs for all.
Meanwhile, Reform UK set out dozens of measures it claimed would help create jobs, including support for the Rosebank oil field and other North Sea projects along with policies including a return to the wider use of imperial measurements and a ban on low-traffic neighbourhoods.
The Government has approved the Jackdaw gas field but Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has yet to rule on the larger Rosebank oil project.
The Conservatives called for measures including the approval of Rosebank, the end of Labour’s ban on new North Sea licences and the scrapping of the energy profits levy on oil and gas firms.
Shadow energy secretary Andrew Bowie said: “Working families need lower energy bills. They were promised £300 off by Labour at the last election, but in reality they have risen by £367.
“Yet instead of taking the tough decisions needed to get costs down for everyone, John Healey is contemplating another bailout for Benefits Street, leaving hardworking families high and dry.”
Reform’s plans would include scrapping a wide range of environmental regulations, cutting or removing entirely the affordable housing requirement for new developments, support for new runways at Heathrow and Gatwick, and legislating so new cars do not require an MOT until they have been on the road for four years, rather than three.
Robert Jenrick, Reform’s Treasury spokesman, said: “Everything reported so far suggests this will be a ‘manana budget’, with John Healey dodging the tough decisions our country needs.
“We can’t continue like this. The country can’t wait 10 years for Andy Burnham to work out a plan – we need action now.
“Reform would bring forward more than 60 job-creating measures in our first budget to kickstart the economy. These common-sense policies cost the taxpayer nothing – it’s a no-brainer.
“Reform UK has the plan to make the economy work again: spend less, tax less, borrow less and finally put the British people first.”
But Liberal Democrat energy spokeswoman Pippa Heylings said: “Families are facing skyrocketing energy bills because gas and oil prices are soaring yet again – but approving Rosebank would do nothing to change that.
“The Conservatives and Reform have their fingers in their ears to that reality – and now Andy Burnham might be about to join them.
“Liberal Democrats recognise that we are going to need gas and oil for decades to come as part of the transition to cleaner energy, but this Government needs to learn from the Conservatives’ failure and genuinely move us away from our dependence on oil and gas.”