ANDY Burnham has been urged not to “cave into the demands of the profiteering oil and gas industry” after reports suggested he will announce new drilling in the North Sea within days of becoming prime minister.
Bloomberg reports that the new Labour Party leader – who will become prime minister on Monday – has asked the civil service to draw up plans for new energy policies that will be revealed as soon as next week.
Burnham is also reportedly looking to take public control of Thames Water.
It is understood that the Makerfield MP is planning a series of public statements in his first days in office to mark a change from the administration under Keir Starmer.
It comes after Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said Burnham should back increased drilling for oil and gas “if he has any common sense”.
Badenoch was speaking in Aberdeen, where the Tories last month won a Westminster by-election in Aberdeen South taking a seat from the SNP. Badenoch insisted the by-election had been a “referendum on drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea”.
However, climate campaigners have urged Burnham not to cave to the demands of those pushing for further drilling in the North Sea.
Amy Cameron, Greenpeace’s programme director, said: “This would be a massive own goal for Andy Burnham. Our country is literally on fire. We’ve all sweated through three record-breaking heatwaves, enduring the losses of thousands of our loved ones and chaos in our hospitals, schools and transport systems.
“The idea that now is the right time to cave into the demands of billionaire fossil fuel companies and Donald Trump is deluded – not to mention deeply irresponsible.”
Cameron added that the only way to secure a future with bearable temperatures and a thriving green economy would require “rapidly phasing out fossil fuels”.
“Turning our backs on that to squeeze out the last few drops from a dying oilfield – which will not lower our bills, create many new jobs or secure our energy supply – would be sheer folly,” she added.
“Andy Burnham still has a chance to see sense and fix the biggest thing we face as a species.”
Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, said it would be a “mistake” for Burnham to cave to the oil and gas industry.
"These are companies that have made obscene profits, while our energy costs have skyrocketed,” she said.
“New North Sea drilling will not take a penny off our bills, it will just make a handful of executives and their shareholders even richer.
"New fields like Rosebank also won't stem the decline in oil and gas jobs, which have more than halved in the past decade, despite new fields and hundreds of new licences being issued in that time.
“It would be particularly tone deaf – and out of step with the majority of voters, including Labour supporters – when the UK is right now suffering the impacts of climate change, driven by fossil fuels.
"The recent extreme heat has claimed thousands of lives, strained hospitals, schools and transport, and piled pressure on farmers. Those impacts will only worsen as long as we keep expanding fossil fuel production.”
