Kemi Badenoch skewered Andy Burnham at Prime Minister’s Questions, accusing him of banking billions from an oil field his own Government has not approved. The Tory leader demanded to know why the controversial Rosebank field had been counted in last month’s Budget when ministers have yet to give it the green light.
She also mocked the Prime Minister for bringing in management consultants to help write his flagship 10-year plan for Britain. In a fiery Commons clash, Mr Burnham was then caught confusing a gas field with an oil field as he tried to defend his record. Mrs Badenoch said: “I’m not surprised he has asked management consultants to help write his plan – he needs all the help he can get.”
PMQs: Badenoch takes on Burnham in fiery session
Turning to the Budget, she said: “There was one worthwhile thing in the Budget, the Rosebank oil field – the Chancellor has already banked the revenue – but there’s just one problem: it has not been approved. If it has not been approved, why was it in the Budget?”
Official forecasts published alongside John Healey’s Budget factored in oil and gas tax revenue from potential new projects, including Rosebank. Mr Burnham insisted Rosebank was a “quasi-legal decision”, before boasting: “But we did approve the Jackdaw oil field.”
Jackdaw is a gas field. Mrs Badenoch hit back, insisting the delays were down to the personal political decisions of his government, and not legal points.
She taunted: “It’s a political decision. Why else did it take the Labour Government two years to approve Jackdaw when the Foreign Secretary was in charge, and now he’s gone it just happened like that?
“That’s the real reason they didn’t do it, the Foreign Secretary [...] thought it was climate vandalism.” Ed Miliband, now Foreign Secretary, previously oversaw energy policy and once branded Rosebank “climate vandalism”.
The Conservative Party has made cheaper domestically produced energy a major plank of its promise to the British public. Labour insists that enabling drilling on the Jackdaw field will improve people's standards of living by reducing costs.
It marks a considerable change in position, as the previous Labour Government appeared hostile to such drilling.