Just Stop Oil continued its campaign by spreading orange paint over road junctions in Westminster this week, but why bother when the organisation seems now to be in power? Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband is said to be weighing up blocking new licenses for oil drilling in the North Sea. Labour has previously said that it wouldn’t allow exploration of entirely new fields but wouldn’t stand in the way of the continued exploitation of existing fields. Yet even this limited exploration now looks in doubt.
How is the government going to generate that income if oil and gas companies are not going to be allowed to drill?
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – which Miliband heads up – poured cold water on a report in the Daily Telegraph that Miliband had already ordered an immediate ban on new drilling. It insisted that no decision has been made yet: ‘We will not issue new licences to explore new fields, and will not revoke existing oil and gas licences.
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