Ministers have approved a gas field that will create 27 jobs, while heat pump grants face the axe in next week’s budget. They are backing the wrong horse.

Gas is in terminal decline in British homes, and today’s decision to approve the Jackdaw gas field will not change that. Every year, more developers and families choose clean electric heating over a gas boiler. My own home is one of them: it no longer burns any gas, thanks in part to the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme.

That scheme is now under threat. With Whitehall hunting for savings to fund defence ahead of next week’s budget, heat pump grants are reportedly on the table. So in the space of a week, the government could back a new gas field and cut the support that helps families leave gas behind. That is exactly the wrong way round.

Look at what Jackdaw actually offers. Over its lifetime, it would produce around 2 months of UK gas demand, a sliver of what the country burns. Its developers say it will create just 27 full-time jobs. And it will not bring down bills. North Sea gas is sold at international prices, so British households will keep paying whatever the global market demands.

What Jackdaw does do is tell investors that gas is still a safe bet. That is the last message they should be hearing. We need every pound of capital flowing into wind, solar, nuclear and the grid connections that bring cheaper, cleaner power to all of us.

There is a better use for what is left under the North Sea: leave it there. Gas is not just a fuel. It is also the raw material for the fertiliser that grows our food, and there may be times ahead when we need it far more than we do today. Keeping our remaining reserves as a strategic store would give future generations a buffer in a crisis, instead of burning it now for a short-term return.

In the meantime, we can import cleaner gas. According to the regulator’s own figures, pipeline gas from Norway is produced with less than a third of the emissions of Britain’s North Sea output.

Gas sits at the heart of both our climate crisis and our cost-of-living crisis. Gas produces over a third of UK greenhouse gas emissions. That comes from the boilers and hobs in our homes, the power stations that make our electricity and the factories that depend on it. Gas power also sets the price of electricity most of the time, so when gas spikes, everyone’s bills follow.

And gas is spiking again. With shipping under attack around the Strait of Hormuz, UK wholesale prices are near their highest since late 2022. No wonder the pressure to open new fields is so intense. The industry keeps the profits when prices soar, safe in the knowledge that the public will pick up the bill. After Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, energy support cost taxpayers £51bn in 2022-23 alone.

Here is the paradox for liberals. We should fight for everyone to have a decent income and a good life. But when jobs depend on activities that deepen the climate emergency, they can do more harm than good. As John Stuart Mill wrote, “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

By that test, the harm is plain. Burning fossil fuels drives much of the air pollution linked to around 30,000 UK deaths a year, along with wildfires, flooding and the loss of species our ecosystems depend on. The answer is not to abandon North Sea workers. It is to make sure they are first in line for the clean energy jobs that will replace theirs.

Falling boiler sales show what good policy can achieve. Sales of new boilers fell from 1.89m in 2021 to 1.45m last year, while the market share of electric heating solutions more than doubled. But that is a small step, when the climate emergency demands a giant leap: the electrification of our homes, our roads and our wider economy.

The chancellor can take that leap in next week’s budget. Break the link between gas and electricity prices, so that cheap renewable power finally shows up on our bills. Move taxes and levies off electricity bills, so that going electric is the cheapest choice for every household. Make electricity affordable, and the switch away from gas will take care of itself.

* Mark Hofman has been a Councillor on Watford Borough Council since 2012.