The list keeps getting longer. Labour would have to be pretty...

The list keeps getting longer. Labour would have to be pretty deaf to have not heard the noise. But as Serica have pointedly commented, Labour and conservative appear to be in a race to the bottom at the moment:


"The troubling developments in 2023 (and sadly again in 2024) came from Westminster. First, the Government elected to keep its supposed ‘Windfall’ Profits Tax in place long after any possible justification for it based on oil and gas prices had disappeared and then most recently in the Spring budget announced that they would extend it by a further year to 2029. Second, the Labour Party announced that, if elected to Government, they would not only increase the rate of the tax to 78% but also significantly reduce the amount of capital relief on investment as compared to the current regime. Uncertainty caused by political short termism risks killing off investment across the UK sector of the North Sea and with it the associated high-quality jobs this creates throughout the UK. It would seem that the established policy of maximising the economic recovery of the UK’s remaining reserves of oil and gas in support of the energy transition has been abandoned. Instead, our politicians appear to have embarked on a race to the bottom with policy aimed at maximising the near-term Government take, notwithstanding that this will necessarily accelerate both production decline and the timing of decommissioning, which in turn will inevitably reduce Government overall receipts from UKCS and serve only to increase imports of oil and gas to the UK. Imported production can easily be interrupted, pays no UK taxes, sustains no UK jobs, and often involves greater carbon emissions. This policy volte face is a sad demonstration of the elevated level of UK political risk which our industry now faces and has necessarily caused all companies operating on the UKCS, including Serica, to reconsider their UK investment plans."