For once, this Ed Miliband madness WAS in Labour’s manifesto… But not its costs

Revealed: Over £200bn and nearly ¼ million jobs at stake with the ‘Energy Independence Bill’

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2026

A Facts4EU and GB News summary of ideological extremism and what it will cost the country

In the speech His Majesty was given to read out, there was no mention of the billions of pounds taxpayers are incurring on Ed Miliband’s Net Zero plans. Nor did the text mention anything about possible job losses arising.

Fortunately the Brexit Facts4EU team, in collaboration with Stand for Our Sovereignty (SovereignUK.Org) and The Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIBUK.Org), have been engaged in one of their famous ‘deep-dives’ into the data and GB News can exclusively bring readers the results.

What does the upcoming Energy Independence Bill do differently?

Ed Miliband’s new Bill will put the bans on oil and gas exploration and fracking – to date only policies - on a permanent, statutory basis. We had of course been forewarned by the Energy Secretary himself.

Over £200bn of tax revenue at risk - to be replaced by tax increases for the ordinary taxpayer?

The government's agency, the North Sea Transition Authority, has averages for costs of extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea. If we take a £41.50 ($50) cost per barrel on a sale price of $107, then 78% of £38.50 is £30, This would be the rough average of tax revenue on each barrel and the total is £270bn. Of the remaining 9 billion barrels we reveal below, some of this will of course still be produced under their run-down policy. Nevertheless, a significant amount of tax revenue is likely to be forgone with this government's plans.

Readers will be familiar with the concept that ‘Parliament may not bind its successors’, but the fact remains that one Parliament can make it difficult for its successor to effect a practical change back to normality. With oil and gas exploration there are also crucial “Hubs”. If these start closing, restarting will be almost impossible.

No, the well has not run dry – not by a long way

Listening to Mr Miliband, readers would be forgiven for thinking the rich North Sea well has run dry. The reality of Britain’s oil and gas wealth, however, is still enormous.

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2026 - click to enlarge

Even the Government’s own regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), recognises this. It calculates by end-2024, almost 48 billion boe (barrels of oil equivalent) had been extracted from the North Sea. Using only its (conservative) mid-range estimates, the NSTA states we still have nearly 20% (9.2 bn boe) of oil and gas to extract – and this is before exploration in more difficult areas.

Ed Miliband plans to leave all this natural wealth where it is - permanently.

Tax revenues from oil and gas companies have halved in last three years

In this period of a cost of living ‘crisis’, and with a desperate need to increase defence expenditure, every billion pounds of government expenditure is critical. Given this, Facts4EU researched tax revenues from oil exploration and extraction, using HMRC data.

Mr Miliband’s total and permanent ban will have a continued depressing effect on the billions the government was receiving. The marginal rate for oil and gas companies was already punitive.

The concern is clearly that taxes will have to rise yet further, to compensate for the lower tax take from the North Sea.

Reform UK and the Conservatives have both made similar warnings

Why import what we already have?

At a meeting of industry leaders two weeks ago, Professor Nick Butler of Kings College London - and formerly an expert VP at BP - discussed the Government’s planning on energy licensing:

“We are the only country in the world that’s cutting back on its potential oil and gas production apart from Denmark. I cannot see the moral, economic or environmental reason for importing oil and gas when we can produce it ourselves. In the face of this current crisis we need to maximise production of every resource we have.”

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2026 - click to enlarge

Finally, can Ed Miliband re-deploy up to 1/4 million workers?

Yet one more possible cost area is that of job losses in the industry. Some 240,000 jobs are directly or indirectly involved in oil and gas. The Government is planning to spend millions on retraining.

To this cost must be added those whose jobs are lost and never replaced with the ‘Net Zero’ jobs Mr Miliband talks of regularly.

[ Sources: HMRC | NSTA | DESNZ ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thurs 04 June 2026

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