# Streeting defends proposal to tap North Sea oil and gas fields

By Tessa Khan — 2026-06-16

Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, said: “Wes Streeting is right that the central route to energy security is cheaper, clean electricity, not more oil and gas.

“But he is misjudged if he thinks that new North Sea projects like Rosebank and Jackdaw will make a material difference to this picture.

“Rosebank is overwhelmingly oil for export.

“It contains minimal gas – in the best case, it would provide just one per cent of UK gas demand.

“The fact is the UK, after 50 years of drilling, has burned most of its gas.

“Worse, these developments would do nothing to lower energy bills and instead, just see the UK locked into an unfair, unaffordable energy system for longer.

“A field on the scale of Rosebank is also wholly incompatible with safe climate limits and our climate obligations.

“Already, extreme weather is driving up our food prices, straining water supplies, flooding homes and disrupting lives.

“Any aspiring Prime Minister needs to show a lot more responsibility to those of us facing these costs now as well as generations to come.

“Politicians need to learn the lesson of the last five years – the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels is making a handful of oil and gas companies obscenely rich and the rest of us poorer, while driving inflation, harming the economy and altering our climate.

“Streeting would do better to listen to the millions who are sick of the energy giants loading costs onto the rest of us, and pay less attention to this profiteering industry and its proxies, like Tony Blair and Donald Trump.”

Canonical: https://experts.pressassociation.com/expert/204/views/baee085db9c235e3