Green energy tycoon Dale Vince backs new North Sea drilling months after claiming it would be a ‘betrayal’

Environmental campaigner Dale Vince has backed the approval of the controversial Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas fields in a surprising U-turn.

The green energy tycoon, who just months ago said the new North Sea drilling would be a “betrayal” if given the green light by the government, said on Monday that he was now “up for” the new projects to go ahead.

Environmental activists fear the impact that extracting fossil fuels from the UK’s largest remaining untapped oil field – which lies about 80 miles west of Shetland – would have on climate change.

But Mr Vince, the Ecotricity boss who has donated about £5 million to Labour, said he was now in favour of Jackdaw and Rosebank in order to save money.

“If we price control wholesale energy across the board, like we have retail, we have to do this to reform our energy system,” he told the BBC.

“If we do that, we pave the way to make sense of Rosebank and Jackdaw new drilling sites that are already licensed, because we can save money.

“And then this secondary argument that’s being made for new drilling. That if we’re going to use fossil fuels, we might as well make them here as to bring them from abroad.

“That makes more sense and comes to the fore. We will use fossil fuels for a number of years to come, and it makes sense to make them here if we can also save money here and create some jobs.

“I’m up for it.”

In April, he told the Sunday Times that allowing new drilling “would be a betrayal of millions of us”.

He said at the time he would like the former energy secretary Ed Miliband to “stick to his guns” and stick to Labour’s manifesto pledge to rule out new drilling in the North Sea.

But he shared a clip of him declaring his support for further drilling on Monday, writing on X: “This is a new approach to north sea oil and gas….:)”

A public consultation on Rosebank – the largest untapped oil field in the North Sea, 80 miles north west of Shetland – closed on Monday.

A similar exercise for the planned Jackdaw gas field, about 150 miles east of Aberdeen, finished on August 10.

Production at both fields had been approved by the previous Conservative government, but those decisions were quashed after a legal challenge by Greenpeace, leaving Labour ministers to decide whether drilling should go ahead.

Bosses at Adura, the company behind both projects, said they would result in £10.8 billion of investment – with more than three quarters of this cash expected to be spent in the UK.

Between them, Rosebank and Jackdaw could support 3,500 jobs at the peak of construction, with 880 people then employed over the lifetime of production.

However, environmentalists claim that Rosebank would produce more than 250 million tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to 70 per cent of UK annual emissions, and the decision on the two projects comes after a summer which has seen soaring temperatures in both the UK and Europe, as well as wildfires in both Britain and the continent.

Andy Burnham is reportedly expected to push the decision projects into the autumn amid concerns about the “optics” of approving them as the nation battles drought and wildfires.

But work and pensions minister Lilian Greenwood denied a delay on Tuesday, telling LBC: “We want to make that decision as promptly as possible, but that’s a matter for [the energy secretary].

“And as far as I know, there’s no deliberate decision to delay that. She’s looking at it and will make the right decision as promptly as possible.”