Stop Rosebank and Jackdaw

Public consultations on updated plans for the Jackdaw gas field east of Aberdeen and the bigger Rosebank oil and gas field north of Shetland closed on 10 August 2026 (Jackdaw) and 17 August (Rosebank).

Those updated plans were written in response to a January 2025 court judgement that, though licenses for the areas had been given long ago, the Tory government's consent for actual development was unlawful because of not heeding climate impacts enough. They now go to the Offshore Petroleum Regulator.

But new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and his sidekick Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh have let hints drop that they will renew consent.

On 14 May, ten trade unions, including Unison, NEU, FBU, PCS, and CWU, rightly called on the government to refuse consent.

• This summer's heatwaves, mild compared to what happens in much of the world, show the deadly effects of climate change.

• Climate change is coming faster, not slower, than expert predictions.

• Keeping it within manageable limits, let alone reversing it, demands stopping fossil-fuel development now. So far expansion of renewables and nuclear has gone alongside continued fossil-fuel burning, not replaced it.

• Rosebank and Jackdaw are small in world terms, but then most individual developments are. Stopping them all means stopping them all.

• They will not reduce world oil and gas costs, and will not reduce UK energy costs.

• Upgrading the electricity grid, improving building insulation, increasing energy efficiency, electrifying everything, expanding renewables and nuclear will generate many more good useful jobs than the 880 jobs at Rosebank and Jackdaw over their lifetimes, or even the thousands in their construction phases. North Sea oil and gas jobs have been declining for a long time, and will continue to decline overall come what may.

• So indeed will proper decommissioning of North Sea rigs, as discussed in the union-backed Our Power report. Around 500 North Sea wells are already overdue for final dismantling.

Stop Jackdaw and Rosebank! For public ownership of the whole energy industry! For a worker-controlled energy transition!