Shocking levels of access afforded to oil and gas representatives revealed by Scotland’s The Sunday National newspaper have been called out by Green Party leader Zack Polanski.
Records show the main firms involved in Rosebank and Jackdaw and lobbying for it (Shell, Equinor, Ithaca, Adura and industry body OEUK) met with UK ministers 200 times between July 2024 and June 2026.
The exposé comes as Jackdaw has been approved and the cabinet are split over whether to give the green light to the highly controversial Rosebank oil field, a decision which is expected imminently.
Backbench Labour MPs are said to be furious about the Chancellor’s alleged interference in the upcoming decision, with one MP saying a decision to give the go ahead to the oil drilling project would be “politically explosive.”
It has been estimated that up to 50 Labour MPs could lose their seats to the Greens if Rosebank is given the go ahead. A new YouGov poll shows that 51% of people in the UK support laws to phase out oil and gas production.
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales said:
“This summer we saw nearly 3000 people die from extreme heat while wildfires raged across the country. This is the crucial decade for climate action – yet Labour ministers are still holding cozy meetings with oil and gas bosses with alarming frequency.
“Budget documents revealed the government is paving the way to greenlight Rosebank which would be catastrophic for the climate. But it’s no wonder this Labour government is making decisions that put the profits of oil and gas giants above the safety of people in this country, when they are constantly rubbing shoulders with them.
“The people of this country deserve better. We need to say no to new oil and gas drilling, a tightened-up windfall tax on oil and gas and an end to tax breaks for fossil fuel companies so we can stop backing climate-wrecking polluters and take real action for a safe future instead.”
The Green Party was the only major political party to condemn the Labour government’s decision to give the go ahead to the Jackdaw gas field last month.
In September over 500 scientists and health professionals from across the UK wrote an open letter calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh to reject Rosebank. They warned that “approval of Rosebank would be ignoring the warnings of scientific research on climate change and would be the wrong decision for the UK, sending a dangerous message on the international stage.”
In July UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “Every new fossil fuel project approved today makes tomorrow’s heatwaves more dangerous, and our world less secure.”
The decision on Rosebank will also be a test of the government’s proposed sanctions on companies involved in illegal settlements in the West Bank. The FCDO has been on notice since January 2026 that greenlighting Rosebank would put it in breach of Articles 49 and 53 of the Geneva Conventions, as an estimated £235 million would end up flowing to the Delek Group, an Israeli based company that has been blacklisted by the UN.
Today’s revelations come days after another lobbying scandal involving AI and data centres. An investigation by Spotlight on Corruption showed the UK government met representatives of 137 different businesses about AI data centres between July 2024 and June 2026, but not a single environmental group. Chancellor John Healey announced a data centre convenant in his budget last week which, although welcomed by the industry, was condemned as insulting voluntarism by campaigners.
Leave a Reply