Ed Miliband has said he is “not aware” of the reports Russia discovered huge oil and gas reserves in the British Antarctic territories.
The shadow energy secretary was asked by City A.M. whether he had concerns about the finding by Russia of some 511bn barrels worth of oil could lead to drilling in the pristine region.
Miliband said: “I’m not aware of that, it’s obviously something I’ll have to look at.
“I think we’ve got a very, very clear position on the role of Russia in British territory, which is not something we’re in favour of.”
The discovery via Russia’s research ships, which equates to 10 times the North Sea’s output over the last 50 years, emerged in evidence submitted to the Commons Environment Audit Committee last week.
And the former Labour leader, speaking on a visit to Barnet, in north London, following Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement of Labour’s six “first steps for change”, also insisted he “disagrees” with criticism of the party’s plans for a windfall tax on the oil and gas giants.
David Whitehouse, chief executive of Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), previously warned that Labour’s new tax plans could risk up to 40,000 jobs and that the party “either can’t do the maths or haven’t considered the alarming jobs impact”.
Miliband responded: “I disagree with David. I have a good relationship with David and OEUK and we talk a lot about these issues.
“We think it is the right thing to do to have a proper windfall tax on the huge profits the oil and gas companies have made and then all of that money is going to go back into clean energy jobs because what that is funding is GB Energy.”
He added: “I know David actually is interested in this because he represents the whole of the offshore sector.
“If we’re going to get ahead in the jobs of the future whether it’s hydrogen or carbon capture, or offshore wind, we need to have that partnership between government and private sector.
“We’ve said on the North Sea that we’re going to carry on with the existing North Sea oil and gas fields which will be with us for decades to come.
“We continue the dialogue with OEUK and others, but we think there is a bright future for North Sea communities, but the future of those communities will be determined by whether we invest in those future jobs.”
Miliband also rejected suggestions that Starmer’s ‘pledge card’ style campaign was retro, or reminiscent of Tony Blair’s strategy in the 1990s, stating: “I think it’s future not retro.
“I don’t think that it’s retro because in 1997 the world was very different. [Setting up GB Energy] wasn’t one of our pledges in 1997 because climate change was obviously an issue but it wasn’t the kind of issue that it is now.
“Also, I don’t think we were as aware as we are now of the huge global race there is on jobs of the future in this area. So I think it’s very much about the future – and it’s about the 2020s and 2030s, not about the 1990s.”
Reflecting on his own leadership, Miliband insisted: “That was 10 years ago, a long time ago.
“The world is very different. What I’m interested in doing and what I’m 100 per cent focused on is making my contribution to Labour’s election campaign as part of Keir Starmer’s team.”
He added: “And if I’m the shadow energy security and net zero secretary after the election, doing a good job in ensuring that we take advantage of the huge opportunity there is.
“The argument I would have made to you 10 years ago about climate is a different argument that it makes you today because then it was the right thing to do for the long term economics of the country, and ethically obviously.
“Today it’s the right thing to do short term and long term as well as ethically because we’ve just been through and families are still going through this terrible cost of living crisis.”