Sunak Toned Down North Sea Oil, Gas Plans After Legal Advice
- UK PM’s office asked for options to help accelerate extraction
- Civil servants said easing environmental rules would break law
Rishi Sunak
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Rishi Sunak watered down proposals to deregulate North Sea oil and gas extraction after UK civil servants warned that policy suggestions from the prime minister’s office would breach international law.
Ahead of Tuesday’s King’s Speech setting out his legislative agenda, Sunak’s aides asked officials at the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero to work on options to ramp up oil and gas extraction. They included a proposal to remove some of the requirements for environmental assessments, according to people familiar with the matter. Another was to reduce the amount of time given for a public consultation on changes to environmental regulations.