A Labour member of Westminster's Energy Security and Net Zero Committee has revealed he took evidence presented during the committee's visit to Aberdeen directly to incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham as he urged the new government to adopt a more "pragmatic" approach to the North Sea.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, Torcuil Crichton MP said one of the most striking pieces of evidence he saw during the committee's roundtable with Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce was a map showing the nationwide footprint of energy sector workers. 

He said he later showed the same map to Mr Burnham to demonstrate that the future of the North Sea affects communities across the UK, not just Aberdeen.

Mr Crichton said: "One of the most powerful maps that I saw last week when the Energy Select Committee went to Aberdeen to take evidence on the future of the North Sea oil was a map of the UK. And it showed the postcode payslips of two tier one companies based in Aberdeen. And the dots for the payslips go right across the UK."

He added: "That's the map I showed Andy Burnham last night when we discussed this, to show that this is an issue that goes across every constituency in the UK, or lots of constituencies in the UK."

The MP said he and other Labour MPs had been urging the incoming Prime Minister to rethink the party's approach to domestic oil and gas production. 

"What I've been doing, and what a number of Labour MPs have been doing, is calling on Andy Burnham to take a more pragmatic approach to the North Sea," he said.

The supply chain map shown to Andy Burnham by Torcuil Crichton

Arguing the case for approving the Jackdaw, Mr Crichton warned the UK was facing an energy security challenge as well as an industrial one. 

"We are in an energy crisis now," he said, adding: "If we don't take the gas from Jackdaw from the North Sea, then we have to take LNG imports from the Middle East or shale gas imports from the US and the carbon footprint of these are even bigger than the domestic supply."

He also warned against allowing the UK's offshore supply chain to decline before the renewable energy sector reaches full scale. 

He added: "We have them in the UK and in the North Sea now. But if the North Sea is run down and out over the next five or six years, then the supply chain that will build the renewable future will come from abroad. We will lose these jobs and expertise to abroad. And we don't want that to happen. We want to sustain UK jobs in the UK."

The P&J front page that greeted the committee in Aberdeen last week

The comments are the latest indication that the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee's visit to Aberdeen last week is influencing the debate around the future of the North Sea. 

They follow similar interventions from committee chair Bill Esterson and fellow Labour MP Graeme Downie, who have also called for a more pragmatic approach to supporting domestic oil and gas production alongside the energy transition.

Original article