Thank you for contacting me about Make Polluters Pay.
While I understand your desire to see more being done to tackle climate change, I do not believe burdening industry with more taxes and regulation to reduce our domestic carbon emissions is the right course of action. It is ultimately families and businesses who pay these costs through higher energy bills, and deindustrialising our own economy to import more from major polluters such as China will do nothing to lower global carbon emissions.
Emissions from fossil fuels are already taxed in the UK through the Climate Change Levy (CCL). Oil and gas companies also pay additional carbon price support rates of the CCL on fossil fuels used to produce electricity.
Oil and gas companies that operate in the UK are also still taxed through the Energy Profits Levy (EPL). This was introduced by the last Government and was only ever intended as a temporary tax, when the oil and gas industry was making extraordinary profits after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, but one that crippled the industry after oil and gas prices returned to normal levels.
The UK will still need a strong oil and gas industry to provide a cheap, abundant supply of energy for decades to come, one that will not leave us entirely dependent on costly foreign imports and intermittent renewables and can provide the investment needed to make new technologies more affordable in the future.
I therefore believe the Government must back the future of the North Sea oil and gas industry by ending the ban on new oil and gas licences.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
