The Jackdaw gasfield will be given the go-ahead on Wednesday, signalling Andy Burnham’s commitment to the North Sea fossil fuel industry and threatening to trigger a row with climate campaigners and Labour MPs. Miatta Fahnbulleh and John Healey, the energy secretary and chancellor respectively, will make the announcement from Aberdeen on Wednesday morning after more than a year of deliberations over whether doing so would violate the UK’s climate commitments. The approval for drilling at one of the biggest undeveloped fields in the declining North Sea basin is a big boost for Britain’s oil and gas industry – and especially for Shell and the Norwegian company Equinor, which operate it.
It will be met with outrage from climate campaigners, who say it undermines Labour’s green credentials and will exacerbate the climate crisis. Tessa Khan, the executive director of the anti-oil campaign group Uplift, said: “Jackdaw will provide around just 2% of our gas demand for roughly 10 years. It has been oversold and won’t stop the overall decline in North Sea jobs, as it will be largely unmanned and operated remotely.” She added: “Labour’s climate credibility is on the line.
No new oil and gasfields are compatible with safe climate limits.” When fully operational, Jackdaw will account for 6% of North Sea gas production, making it one of the biggest gasfields not yet under production. Along with the Rosebank oilfield, its status has become symbolic of the government’s commitment to the oil and gas industry, which is facing heavy job losses as reserves decline and platforms become increasingly automated. The field was approved by the Conservative government in 2022, with ministers arguing it would help shield the UK from the volatility in the energy market caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Labour came to power in 2024 on a promise not to grant any new licences in the North Sea, not expecting to have to make a decision on Jackdaw or Rosebank. However both fields were cast into doubt last year by a landmark ruling that said their environmental approval had been incorrectly granted. A judge ruled that when deciding whether the two fields would violate the UK’s climate commitments, regulators should have taken into account the carbon emissions generated by burning the oil and gas they would produce.
Shell and Equinor resubmitted their application for environmental consent last September. Since then, Fahnbulleh and her predecessor, Ed Miliband, have spent months deciding whether to use their ministerial power to block it. Both the prime minister and his predecessor, Keir Starmer, have come under heavy pressure to allow the fields to go ahead in recent months, not least from Donald Trump, who urged both men to “open up the North Sea”.
Burnham signalled he was sympathetic to the US president’s arguments earlier this summer, promising to take a “pragmatic approach” to the decision. We will set out our decisions shortly.” Several sources have told the Guardian that Fahnbulleh has decided not to block the field, allowing the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which regulates the industry, to give the go-ahead based on financial and logistical concerns. Making the announcement alongside Healey and the NSTA’s chief executive, Stuart Payne, they will say that granting the environmental approval does not violate Labour’s manifesto commitment because it is not a new licence.
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