The default position HAS to be that they both want to develop...

The default position HAS to be that they both want to develop the project.

The man barrier to achieving this appears to be politics. However,  I would assume that at some stage (timing yet to be established) that all political parties see economic sense and allow development and production to continue. To allow the alternative of letting a critical service go before you have an adequate replacement is just financial suicide.

Just a quick add up shows that accelerating the natural decline of  O&G would cost the government approximately £40 billion a year by 2030 assuming a 50% decline in production by then), in balance of payments, lost tax revenue from production (and associated income tax on job losses), and interest. That’s close to 5% of the national annual budget of the UK.
Importantly though, that’s £40 billion less that the government can spend on net zero, which means it’s a double hit.
We already know that the next government will have very little wriggle room to spend on their shiny new policies until 2028/29 when national debt is expected to start falling. In fact, common consensus is that both the major political parties are avoiding talking about the elephant in the room after the election which is almost certainly very deep spending cuts across the board.

Bottom line, Labour can ill afford to bite the hand that feeds, and will have to continue to rely on O&G production to fund a good chunk of the budget. Its just a matter of how long will it take them to backtrack on these senseless policy proposals.