On 3-4 November 2026, Energy Landscape UK 2026 (ELUK2026) brings together government, developers, investors, network operators and the wider supply chain at The Kia Oval, London, with one clear aim: moving the UK from ambitious targets to infrastructure that actually gets built.
Across sessions on offshore wind, grid transformation, nuclear and fusion, critical minerals, industrial decarbonisation, and workforce and skills, ELUK2026 is designed to confront the hard questions of delivery: who pays, who builds and how the UK keeps energy secure and affordable along the way.
Ahead of the conference, New Energy Weekly spoke with Andrew Bowie MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Harriet Cross MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and Shadow Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Both represent constituencies in north-east Scotland, at the heart of the UK’s oil and gas industry. They set out the Conservative vision for UK energy: the future of the North Sea, the fiscal regime, nuclear ambition, the true cost of the transition, and what they want to hear from the developers and investors who will be in the room at ELUK2026.
New Energy Weekly: The UK energy debate has become too binary, with oil and gas often pitched against renewables. What does a genuinely balanced UK energy strategy look like to you over the next decade?
Andrew Bowie: The biggest mistake we can make is treating this as a binary choice between oil and gas or renewables. It isn’t. Britain needs an energy mix that is affordable and secure in the face of increasing global tension.
We should be developing renewables, expanding nuclear and recognising that oil and gas will remain a huge part of our energy mix for years to come. While we still rely on oil and gas, it makes far more sense to drill the North Sea instead of importing more from Norway, USA, Qatar or even Russia.
This would support British jobs, ensure our world leading energy supply chain is fully utilised here in the UK, boost investment into the economy, protect our fragile energy security and lower bills for households who are struggling with the rising cost of energy bills.
Energy security has become a far more prominent political issue following successive geopolitical shocks. How should the UK define energy security now and where does domestic production fit alongside renewables, nuclear, storage and interconnection?
Andrew Bowie: The last few years have been a stark reminder that energy security is national security.
A genuinely secure system shouldn’t leave Britain dangerously exposed to events or regimes beyond our control. That means diversity of supply, nuclear, renewables and crucially domestic oil and gas all have a critical role to play.
Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the danger of becoming overly dependent on imported energy. We should learn from that. It’s absurd to ignore the vital resources we have in the North Sea while neighbouring countries like Norway extract from the exact same seabed.
That’s why Kemi Badenoch launched our plan to Get Britain Drilling. The plan would remove net zero requirements and carbon storage mandates on oil and gas companies in the North Sea, reverse the Labour government’s ban on new oil and gas licensing and repeal the Energy Profits Levy (EPL). This along with our Cheap Power Plan would protect our energy security and lower household energy by £200.
You have been a strong advocate of new North Sea licensing and progressing projects such as Jackdaw and Rosebank. What role do you believe new production should play as the basin matures and overall UK oil and gas demand declines?
Andrew Bowie: The fact that the North Sea is a mature basin is an argument for maximising extraction while it is still a viable option, not for accelerating its decline as Labour and SNP politicians are arguing for.
As existing fields decline, new developments and licences can help replace some of that lost production. That supports our energy security, sustains highly skilled jobs and maintains the infrastructure and supply chains we need for the wider energy sector. We should also recognise that the UK Continental Shelf extends beyond the North Sea and into West of Shetland, which is less mature and presents more opportunities for exploration and production.
Refusing to grant new licences doesn’t mean that Britain will suddenly stop using oil and gas. It just means we will have to import it. There is no economic or environmental logic in closing down domestic production only to rely on other countries for the oil and gas we still need.
That’s why the Conservatives have consistently backed projects such as Rosebank and Jackdaw and why we’ve been clear that we want to get Britain drilling again.
What would a fiscal regime need to provide to restore long-term investment confidence in the North Sea?
Andrew Bowie: Above everything else, certainty.
Energy projects require enormous sums of capital and investment decisions that span over decades. Companies need to know that the rules aren’t going to be rewritten every few months.
The EPL was introduced in response to genuinely exceptional circumstances and was called for and supported at the time by the SNP, Reform, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens. But, the EPL has subsequently been increased dramatically and extended to 2030.
Our position is clear, the EPL must be scrapped.
We also need to restore confidence that Britain actually wants investment, because if the UK remains an unattractive place to invest, companies will simply go elsewhere.
Once the skills, companies and supply chains leave the North Sea, getting them back will be extremely difficult.
How concerned are you about losing North Sea skills and supply chain capacity before emerging industries are able to absorb them? What would a credible ‘just’ transition for north-east Scotland look like in practice?
Harriet Cross: This is one of our biggest concerns as MPs representing the north-east of Scotland.
Politicians increasingly talk about a ‘just transition’ as though you can simply switch an economy from relying on one industry to another overnight.
The north-east has spent decades building an extraordinary concentration of engineering and sub-surface expertise, offshore experience and highly skilled workers. Those capabilities are enormous assets, but since 2024, 25,000 have been lost in the North Sea oil and gas sector. These job losses won’t stop without a significant change in government policy.
We are opposed to the current ‘just transition’ timeline. It’s nothing more than managed decline that threatens our energy security and destroys jobs.
That’s why we have a policy of maximum extraction of the North Sea, with the goal of extracting every single drop of viable hydrocarbon resources remaining in the North Sea which not only is good for UK investment and tax returns, it also contributes to our own energy security and crucially protects tens of thousands of jobs supported by the sector.
There is substantial investment planned for renewables and grid infrastructure. What changes would you like to see in the way policymakers assess the cost of the transition?
Harriet Cross: We need much greater honesty about the whole-system cost.
Too often politicians quote the cost of generating electricity from a particular technology and treat that as though it is the final cost to the consumer. It isn’t.
We need to consider the generation itself, but also the transmission infrastructure, balancing costs, storage, backup generation, constraint payments and the cost of reinforcing the grid.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t invest in renewables as part of our energy mix. But politicians need to be honest about what will provide the most affordable and reliable energy stream.
Time and again, the evidence tells us that drilling from the North Sea would cut energy bills for households and bolster our energy security
It’s also crucial that new energy infrastructure like pylons are not imposed on communities without their consent.
The Conservatives have criticised the current trajectory of UK energy policy. Which elements would you nevertheless retain or accelerate, particularly in areas such as nuclear, renewables, storage and grid investment?
Harriet Cross: Being critical of the current approach taken doesn’t mean opposing cleaner energy. Far from it.
We would like to see Britian moving much faster on nuclear. Nuclear gives us reliable, low-carbon domestic power and should be a treated as a critical part of our long-term energy mix.
Unlike wind and solar, nuclear provides 24/7 continuous baseload power. It’s the only proven technology that delivers clean, independent energy. Labour’s current target of a completely decarbonised grid by 2030 is an impossible fantasy unless they finally support nuclear. Labour do support nuclear and have adopted the Fingleton recommendations, there’s a fair bit of alignment on nuclear but they’re not being as ambitious and decisions like designating Wylfa as the site for the first UK SMR’s means that building a third GW scale reactor there as we planned to do so is unlikely to now happen.
ELUK2026 is all about moving from ambitious targets to infrastructure delivery. Where do you see the biggest obstacles today? What do you most want to hear from developers, investors and energy companies at the conference?
Harriet Cross: What we hear all the time is that Labour’s approach of higher taxes, over regulation, inconsistent policies and restrictions on new oil and gas production, lack of clarity over the future of Rosebank and Jackdaw (and, by extension, other fields) is leading to companies concluding that Britain doesn’t want their investment.
We want to hear from the people make the decisions. What is stopping you investing? Where is government getting in the way? What would make Britain more competitive?
