Leadership candidate Wes Streeting is already setting out his pledges as a leadership contest looks set to begin this week.
Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting (Image: Getty)
Labour leadership candidate Wes Streeting has kicked off his campaign to become Prime Minister by pledging to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea – in a savage slap in the face to Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband. He accused “opponents of the North Sea” of putting up household energy prices and pushing voters into the arms of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
The battle to replace Sir Keir Starmer as party leader and Prime Minister is set to begin in earnest following the Makerfield by-election on Thursday, when Greater Manchester Mayor and leadership contender Andy Burnham hopes to return to Parliament as an MP. But Mr Streeting, the former Health Secretary, today set out two big policies, effectively launching his own leadership bid before Mr Burnham has the chance.
He said tax revenues for projects granted new consent in the North Sea should be used to cut energy bills and carbon emissions.
The government is currently deciding whether to allow production to begin at Jackdaw gas field and Rosebank oil and gas field, with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband understood to be firmly against the proposals.
But Mr Streeting argued that declining oil and gas production – along with lower prices – cost the Treasury £1.6 billion in tax receipts in 2024/25.
He said tax receipts from the two new fields could be funnelled into new heat pumps, home insulation starting with council houses, batteries and other electrification projects that both cut household or business energy bills and reduce carbon emissions.
Mr Streeting said: “Businesses and households are held back by high energy costs. The tax receipts from new North Sea oil and gas fields should be funnelled into cheaper energy: insulation, heat pumps, and electrification to cut bills and emissions.
“Opponents of the North Sea say it sets the wrong example to the world. But the worst example we can set is that net zero can only be delivered on the backs of the poor and working people’s jobs. This is the route to Nigel Farage walking into Downing Street and destroying our renewables industry.
“The best example we can set is to show that the net zero and growth agendas are not in competition. That we can cut bills and cut emissions at the same time.”
Mr Streeting is also set to announce plans to loosen immigration restrictions for 20,000 of the world’s leading scientists, AI experts and engineers, to try to attract them to come to the UK.
If he becomes Prime Minister, his government will work with universities, businesses, professional bodies, trade unions and national institutions, to identify the world’s best brains, he will say.
Mr Streeting said: “We should open our door to the best and the brightest. Trump is saying to world-leading scientists, engineers, AI experts – you’re not welcome here. I would tell them: we’ll welcome you with open arms.
“I’d introduce a Global Talent Programme to actively recruit 20,000 of the world’s best scientists, engineers, and AI experts to our country. They are building the future and I want them to build it here.
“Voters who want lower levels of migration aren’t opposed to inviting tomorrow’s Nobel Prize winners to make their discoveries here in Britain.”