There are believed to be 20bn barrels of oil left in the North Sea oilfields. Asked whether the absence of shale gas in the budget and government’s recent flagship climate plan showed the Conservatives were going lukewarm on fracking, the MP for Wells said: “I can’t speak for the party. He argued that wind and solar were on the cusp of being viable in Britain without subsidies. The Treasury defended the decision to stop new green energy subsidies on the grounds that energy billpayers would be paying £8.6bn a year for the power stations by 2025. The UK energy market hasn’t benefited from government stuck in the middle of it, saying how much it’s willing to pay for technology.”

Source: The Guardian November 26, 2017 14:48 UTC