Freeing up British energy

No matter the political debate of the day, the perennial question of energy security is ever present. The Prime Minister is set to meet with energy leaders this week to discuss the matter as we head into another difficult autumn. He is right to be doing so; it would be all too easy, as energy prices begin to drop, to set this vital issue aside until the next chokepoint. Yet the problem remains as urgent as ever. 

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made it painfully clear that we must source as much energy as possible domestically, cutting our exposure to despotic and unstable foreign regimes. While Britain imported relatively little from Russia, we nevertheless paid a price when Moscow choked supplies to the Continent as demand for non-Russian gas increased. In the event, we were unexpectedly blessed with an unusually warm winter, meaning the worst of the energy crunch passed by without blackouts. 

But the fundamental threats to our energy supply have not gone away, and indeed new ones are emerging. Increasing Chinese demand for liquefied natural gas will present even more competition for alternative sources. Add to this the inexplicable choice of the German government to shut down its last nuclear power stations, and the shuttering of power units in Britain, and a sufficiently drawn out cold spell could leave us at Putin’s mercy. 

It did not have to be this way. Successive governments have failed for decades to safeguard our energy security, preferring instead to kick the issue into the long grass with short-term fixes. This attitude was perhaps best summarised by the video of the former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, dismissing nuclear investments as they would not “come on stream until 2021, 2022”. From the vantage point of 2023, those investments look considerably more attractive. 

We cannot afford to repeat such errors. Mr Sunak has made small steps in this direction, committing to new oil and gas licences in the North Sea and working to revive the fortunes of nuclear energy. He must now press on to take full advantage of our natural resources to free ourselves of Moscow’s pressure, and to allow a transition to renewables that people’s wallets can bear.