Tag: Downing Street

Hundreds of new oil and gas licences will be granted in the UK, the Prime Minister has confirmed today (Monday 31 July), as the UK Government continues to back the North Sea oil and gas industry as part of drive to make Britain more energy independent.

The Government and the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) are today announcing a joint commitment to undertake future licensing rounds, which will continue to be subject to a climate compatibility test.

By adopting a more flexible application process, licences could also be offered near to currently licensed areas – unlocking vital reserves which can be brought online faster due to existing infrastructure and previous relevant assessments.

With the independent Climate Change Committee predicting around a quarter of the UK’s energy demand will still be met by oil and gas when the UK reaches net zero in 2050, the Government is taking steps to slow the rapid decline in domestic production of oil and gas, which will secure our domestic energy supply and reduce reliance on hostile states.

This will increase the UK’s energy security and reduce dependence on higher-emission imports, whilst protecting more than 200,000 jobs in a vital industry as we grow the UK economy. As part of a visit to a critical energy infrastructure site in Aberdeenshire today, the Prime Minister will highlight the central role the region will play in strengthening the UK’s energy independence and meet the next generation of skilled apprentices key to driving this work forward.

The NSTA – responsible for regulating the oil, gas and carbon storage industries – is currently running the 33rd offshore oil and gas licensing round. They expect the first of the new licences to be awarded in the autumn, with the round expected to award over 100 licences in total.

Future licences will be critical to providing energy security options, unlocking carbon capture usage and storage and hydrogen opportunities – building truly integrated offshore energy hubs that make the best use of the established infrastructure.

This comes as new analysis released by the NSTA today shows that the carbon footprint of domestic gas production is around one-quarter of the carbon footprint of imported liquified natural gas. As the UK is a rapidly declining producer of oil and gas, new oil and gas licences reduce the fall in UK supply in order to ensure vital energy security, rather than increase it above current levels – so that the UK remains on track to meet net zero by 2050.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said:

We have all witnessed how Putin has manipulated and weaponised energy – disrupting supply and stalling growth in countries around the world.

Now more than ever, it’s vital that we bolster our energy security and capitalise on that independence to deliver more affordable, clean energy to British homes and businesses.

Even when we’ve reached net zero in 2050, a quarter of our energy needs will come from oil and gas. But there are those who would rather that it come from hostile states than from the supplies we have here at home.

We’re choosing to power up Britain from Britain and invest in crucial industries such as carbon capture and storage, rather than depend on more carbon intensive gas imports from overseas – which will support thousands of skilled jobs, unlock further opportunities for green technologies and grow the economy.

The UK’s oil and gas industry are also vital to driving forward and investing in clean technologies that we need to realise our net zero target, like carbon capture usage and storage, by drawing from the sector’s existing supply chains, expertise and key skills whilst protecting jobs.

Today, the Government has confirmed that projects Acorn in North East Scotland and Viking in the Humber have been chosen as the third and fourth carbon capture usage and storage clusters in the UK.

The Government has already committed to deploy CCUS in two industrial clusters by the mid-2020s – the HyNet cluster in North West England and North Wales, and the East Coast Cluster in the Teesside and Humber – and another further two clusters by 2030 – now confirmed as Acorn and Viking.

Together, these four clusters will build a new thriving carbon capture usage and storage industry, which could support up to 50,000 jobs in the UK by 2030.

The UK has one of the largest potential carbon dioxide storage capacities in Europe, making the North Sea one of the most attractive business environments for CCUS technology. The Government has committed to provide up to £20 billion in funding for early deployment of CCUS, unlocking private investment and job creation.

Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps said:

In the wake of Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, our energy security is more important than ever. The North Sea is at the heart of our plan to power up Britain from Britain so that tyrants like Putin can never again use energy as a weapon to blackmail us.

Today’s commitment to power ahead with new oil and gas licences will drive forward our energy independence and our economy for generations. Protecting critical jobs in every region of the UK, safeguarding energy bills for British families and providing a homegrown fuel for our economy that, for domestic gas production, has around one-quarter the carbon footprint of imported liquified natural gas.

Our next steps to develop carbon capture and storage, in Scotland and the Humber, will also help to build a thriving new industry for our North Sea that could support as many as 50,000 jobs, as we deliver on our priority of growing the economy.

The Prime Minister has also tasked the relevant Government departments and regulators to work collaboratively and report back by the end of the year on how we can make the best use of our offshore resources in a truly integrated way as we unlock CCUS and hydrogen opportunities in the North Sea.

A call for evidence has also been launched by Government today, seeking views on the evolving context for taxes for the oil and gas sector to design a long-term fiscal regime which delivers predictability and certainty, supports investment, protects jobs and the country’s energy security.

The Prime Minister spoke to President Zelenskyy this morning.

The leaders discussed recent developments on the battlefield and the continued progress by Ukrainian forces despite the challenging conditions. The Prime Minister added that he was appalled by the devastation caused by recent Russian attacks on Odesa.

Discussing the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the leaders agreed on the importance of ensuring grain was able to be exported from Ukraine to reach international markets. The Prime Minister said the UK was working closely with Turkey on restoring the grain deal, and we would continue to use our role as chair of the UN Security Council to further condemn Russia’s behaviour.

Russia was increasingly looking to target merchant vessels in the Black Sea area and the UK was carefully monitoring the situation alongside our partners, the Prime Minister added.

The UK continued to support Ukraine’s air defence and artillery needs with more ammunition and missiles being delivered, the Prime Minister said.

Reflecting on long-term security assurances, the leaders agreed the number of countries who had put themselves forward to sign up to the multilateral Joint Declaration was a testament to the international support for Ukraine.

The leaders looked forward to speaking again soon.

Reaching this target would represent another important milestone in the government’s already successful housebuilding strategy. Since 2010, over 2.2 million new homes have been delivered and millions of people have moved into home ownership.

The pledge comes ahead of a major speech by the Housing and Levelling Up Secretary, Michael Gove, today in which he will set out new measures to unblock the planning system and build more homes in the right places where there is local consent.

Rather than concreting over the countryside, the government will focus on prioritising building in inner-city areas where demand is highest and growth is being constrained. This includes a new urban quarter in Cambridge which will unlock the city’s full potential as a source of innovation and talent. Working with local leaders and communities in Cambridge, a new quarter will create new beautiful homes, supported by state of the art facilities with cutting-edge laboratories and green spaces.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said:

Today I can confirm that we will meet our manifesto commitment to build 1 million homes over this Parliament. That’s a beautiful new home for a million individual families in every corner of our country.

We need to keep going because we want more people to realise the dream of owning their own home.

We won’t do that by concreting over the countryside – our plan is to build the right homes where there is the most need and where there is local support, in the heart of Britain’s great cities.

Our reforms today will help make that a reality, by regenerating disused brownfield land, streamlining planning process and helping homeowners to renovate and extend their houses outwards and upwards.

Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove said:

Most people agree that we need to build more homes – the question is how we go about it.

Rather than concreting over the countryside, we have set out a plan today to build the right homes in the right places where there is community support – and we’re putting the resources behind it to help make this vision a reality.

At the heart of this is making sure that we build beautiful and empower communities to have a say in the development in their area.

The government will also take steps to unblock the bottlenecks in the planning system that are choking and slowing down development, and stopping growth and investment by:

• Immediately launching a £24 million Planning Skills Delivery Fund to clear backlogs and get the right skills in place.
• Setting up a new “super-squad” team of leading planners and other experts charged with working across the planning system to unblock major housing developments. The team will first be deployed in Cambridge to turbocharge our plans in the city.

Developers will also be asked to contribute more through fees, to help support a higher quality more efficient planning service.

New flexibilities to convert shops, takeaways and betting shops into homes will help to rejuvenate the high street. Meanwhile, red tape will be cut to enable barn conversions and the repurposing agricultural buildings and disused warehouses.

New freedoms to extend homes, convert lofts and renovate new buildings will help to convert existing properties into new accommodation. A review into the extension of permitted development rights will make it easier for homeowners to build upwards and outwards – with new extensions and loft conversions – whilst ensuring neighbours’ interests are protected.

Community support is vital in making these plans a success and the Housing Secretary has been clear any developments must be beautiful, come with the right infrastructure and designed with locals in mind. That is why the Housing Secretary is also today announcing:

• Office for Place – a new body will be launched today to lead a design revolution and ensure local people have a say in how housing is designed.
• A consultation on reforming local plans, to make them simpler, shorter and more visual, showing clearly what is planned in local areas so communities can engage.

Stakeholder comments:

Sir Mene Pangalos, AstraZeneca:

This announcement offers the potential to help Cambridge continue to develop as a leading global centre for life sciences and healthcare, enhance its infrastructure, and deliver further growth locally and nationally.

Caspar Herzberg CEO, AVEVA:

We welcome this investment in Cambridge’s future as a global science and technology hub. From AVEVA’s origins as a research joint-venture between the government and University of Cambridge, the city remains a major R&D centre for our global software business.  We’re committed to continuing to invest in Cambridge as an innovation centre for the development of the next generation of industrial software, using AI to drive productivity and decarbonisation for our customers around the world.

Steve Bates CEO, UK BioIndustry Association:

The UK life science sector needs speedy decisions on new labs and homes to grow. Today’s announcement about Cambridge  is a welcome boost to scaling companies like Alcamab and Bicycle, competing for global investment.

Mark Reynolds, Chief Executive, Mace:

One of our biggest challenge as an industry is a lack of clarity over the future pipeline of construction work across the UK. This welcome funding for more planning experts will help to decrease waiting times for planning decisions – a major cause of uncertainty and delay in delivery across the construction sector – and a review of permitted development rights could help to unlock UK-wide growth through the opportunity for more work across the country for the repair, maintenance and improvement sector.

Ryan Shorthouse CEO, Bright Blue:

To give younger people from modest backgrounds a better chance of home ownership, we urgently need to build more homes in desirable parts of the country.  The welcome measures announced today will help quicken and simplify the planning process, and are thus strong steps towards achieving greater and greener homes. But these policies are only the start of the major demand-side and supply-side reforms that are needed to the housing market to ensure more young people can enjoy the benefits of property ownership.

Dean Finch CEO, Persimmon:

Persimmon welcomes the proposals announced today to deliver much needed reform of the planning system with the aim of accelerating the development of new homes that will help hard-pressed people achieve their dream of affordable home ownership.

Jack Pringle, Chair of the RIBA Board:

We pleased to see today’s announcements which will enable the vital action needed to tackle the housing crisis. Measures to increase planning resource are welcome and critical to build the homes that we need. New homes do need to be delivered at pace, and we should aim to deliver quality as well as quantity. We remain committed to working with our partners in government to deliver well-designed, accessible and sustainable homes in the places that need them most.

Ike Ijeh Head of Housing, Architecture and Urban Space, Policy Exchange:

Policy Exchange is delighted to see key recommendations of its recently published Placemaking Matrix incorporated into the government’s new plans. Both the report and our groundbreaking ‘Building More, Building Beautiful’ paper co-authored by the late Sir Roger Scruton were invested in the founding principle that improving the quality and quantity of UK housing is simply not possible without an aggressive focus on urban quality and democratic consent. It is therefore encouraging to see these ideas take centre stage in the government’s new proposals.

Victoria Hills, Chief Executive, Royal Town Planning Institute:

I believe this investment into the planning system will make a significant contribution to alleviating the pressure placed on England’s planning services. Well-resourced local planning authorities have the power to make a unique contribution to their areas, helping to deliver the affordable homes, public services, and critical infrastructure individuals, families and communities need.

Andrew Davies, CEO, Kier Group:

Construction and Infrastructure have a key role to play in supporting economic growth. As such, any steps taken to speed up planning consents and invest in the improvement and regeneration of communities are welcome.

Richard Harpin, founder and Chairman, Homeserve:

I welcome this investment from the government to build more homes in a sensible way to help grow the economy. It is good to see government listening to business and backing areas such as Cambridge.

Poppy Gustafsson, CEO, Darktrace:

Cambridge is a fantastic place not just to start, but also to scale a technology business. We have benefitted greatly from being so close to the talented technology innovators of the future, bringing them into our rapidly growing business where they’re developing extraordinary AI solutions that are keeping organisations around the world safe from cyber disruption. We welcome any steps taken to strengthen the Cambridge innovation ecosystem as we’d love to see a thriving UK technology sector and the next wave of Darktraces on these shores.

A new business council has been appointed by the Prime Minister to report from the business frontlines as the Government continues to boost stability and growth in the UK economy.

Chief Executives from AstraZeneca, NatWest Group and BAE Systems are among the fourteen business leaders joining the council, alongside SSE, Google Deepmind, Sainsbury’s and Vodafone. Other companies represented on the council include GSK, Aviva, Shell, Sage, Taylor Wimpey, Diageo and Barclays.

These leaders are recognised as trusted experts in their respective fields and are in charge of some of the country’s biggest employers in strategically important industries for UK growth – from construction, life-sciences and tech to financial services and energy.

Together, they employ around 330,000 people across the country, with an even greater reach throughout their supply chain and a presence globally too.

Thanks to the Government’s plans, the UK economy is set to grow instead of fall into a recession and inflation is expected to substantially reduce by the end of the year.

Ensuring the UK is the best place in the world to do business, now and in the future, will be crucial to making continued progress on growing the economy.

The newly appointed Business Council will be a forum to bring a real-world perspective on how the current economic climate is impacting business and how government and industry can work together to boost investment and innovation, drive productivity and create highly skilled jobs.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said:

The more businesses innovate and invest, the more we grow and create good jobs right across the country.

I look forward to hearing first-hand from business leaders about how we can break down the barriers they face and unlock new opportunities for them to thrive.

My new Business Council is one of the many ways we are making the UK the best place to do business and invest, so we can future-proof and grow our economy.

The Council will meet today (18 July) in Downing Street, chaired by the Prime Minister. It will be followed by a reception for around 100 businesses to celebrate British enterprise.

The UK is open for business and an attractive place to invest, with a competitive business environment that stimulates growth. This is driven by policies like full-expensing – an effective corporation tax cut of £9 billion a year for UK businesses – and the lowest corporation tax in the G7, whilst reducing red-tape and investing billions in government funding such as in R&D. According to EY’s global attractiveness survey of CEOs, the UK is the most attractive investment destination in Europe.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot:

The private sector has a vital role to play working with government and society to build a sustainable economy. I look forward to productive discussions on matters affecting the UK’s growth agenda and efforts to truly become a global science superpower creating high value enterprises, jobs and advancing the UK’s global net zero ambitions.

BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn:

It’s more important than ever that government and industry work closely together and as one of the UK’s largest employers, playing a key role in supporting national security as well as economic prosperity, I’m looking forward to discussing how we can help drive growth and attract investment into the UK as part of the new Business Council.

SSE CEO Alistair Phillips-Davies:

As somebody committed to ensuring that the UK is one of the easiest places in the world for low carbon investment, with a vibrant economy that supports high quality jobs and entrepreneurial innovation, I look forward to contributing to business and government thinking and action as part of the Council.

GSK CEO Emma Walmsley:

I welcome the opportunity to join the Prime Minister’s Business Council.  I look forward to discussing the steps business and Government can take to strengthen the UK economy – harnessing science and new technologies, from AI to vaccines innovation, to boost UK productivity and investment, and unlock economic growth.

Google DeepMind Co-Founder and CEO Demis Hassabis:

The UK’s world-class strengths in science and technology, including AI, are key to boosting innovation and tackling the biggest challenges we face as a country. I’m pleased to join the Prime Minister’s new Business Council and look forward to working with the Government and other industry leaders to maximise these opportunities.

NatWest Group CEO Alison Rose:

Partnership between government and business is the cornerstone of a sustainable growth economy. That’s why I’m delighted to be part of the Prime Minister’s Business Council for 2023. Working together we can face into the nation’s challenges to unlock investment, drive enterprise, grasp the opportunity of climate transition and ultimately, help UK economy to thrive.

Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts:

We serve millions of customers every day and as an industry we work with British farmers and food manufacturers to deliver the nation’s food system. We believe there are many opportunities to collaborate and support on a strong and resilient plan for the future.

Barclays CEO C. S. Venkatakrishnan:

I am honoured to represent Barclays on the Prime Minister’s Business Council. As a leading player in global markets, Barclays is committed to supporting the Government in unlocking investment and harnessing innovation. Together, we seek to turbocharge sustainable economic growth and inclusive prosperity for the UK.

Diageo CEO Debra Crew:

I welcome the opportunity to join the Prime Minister’s new Business Council. British businesses and Government have a shared responsibility in delivering prosperity, creating the conditions to encourage investment and international trade and tackling the big issues the country faces, from the cost of living to climate change.

Aviva CEO Amanda Blanc:

The UK faces a number of urgent challenges, such as climate change and the delivery of infrastructure across the country. I am keen to use this opportunity for Aviva to help shape the solutions.

Shell CEO Wael Sawan:

I am honoured to join the Prime Minister’s Business Council to help drive prosperity and growth in the UK, specifically through the provision of secure, affordable and cleaner energy. The economic and societal challenges we face today require candid collaboration between government and business to deliver the undoubted growth potential that we have in this country.

Vodafone CEO Margherita della Valle:

I am pleased to be joining the Business Council, an important forum to promote and support the global competitiveness of the UK. We have a vital part to play in the UK’s future, as our national communications infrastructure can help drive innovation and economic growth.

Taylor Wimpey CEO Jennie Daly:

I share the Business Council’s ambition of harnessing the power of the private sector to stimulate economic development and prosperity and to make our towns and villages across the country better places to live and work.

Sage CEO Steve Hare:

Small and mid-sized businesses play a critical role in powering the UK economy. Sage is proud to serve them as the UK’s biggest listed tech company, helping them to harness the power of technology to boost productivity and resilience. I look forward to bringing SMEs’ voice to the table as a member of the Business Council, capitalising on the UK’s opportunity to be a leading digital economy and drive economic growth.

The Prime Minister met Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Støre at the NATO Summit in Lithuania today.

The leaders praised the extensive cooperation between the UK and Norway on defence and security, from our membership of the Joint Expeditionary Force to our consistent leadership within NATO.

Both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to providing maritime defence and security in the High North, agreeing protecting the region was critical for Euro-Atlantic security. They agreed to look to deepen defence cooperation further.

The leaders welcomed the collaboration between the UK and Norway on energy security. The Prime Minister reflected on the importance of offshore wind farms in shoring up energy supplies across Europe, and agreed we needed to deepen collaboration to increase provision.

The Prime Minister paid tribute to the courage and bravery of Ukraine’s Armed Forces on the front lines.

They discussed the increasing progress of the counteroffensive, and the Prime Minister outlined a new package of UK support for Ukraine.

The Prime Minister welcomed the fact that the MAP requirement for Ukraine had now been removed, smoothing the path to full NATO membership in the future.

The Prime Minister and the President agreed on the importance of the security arrangements to be announced by the G7 this afternoon.

They marked a new high point in support from the international community and would give Ukraine an even greater level of endurance against Russian aggression, the Prime Minister said.

Both agreed the arrangements will not be a substitute for NATO membership and looked forward to building on the new security framework as soon as possible.