Ed Miliband faces an unlikely revolt after the chief executive of Britain’s wind farm industry body reportedly urged him to embrace North Sea oil and gas production, saying the Iran war had laid bare how exposed the country was to energy shocks it cannot control.

Tara Singh of RenewableUK — whose members build and operate the offshore wind farms at the heart of Labour’s green energy agenda — told reporters producing more fossil fuels at home was a matter of basic national sense, not ideology, and called on the Energy Secretary to “take energy out of the culture wars.”

She drew on her own experience at the heart of government to make the case, saying: “I have seen that vulnerability up close. I worked on energy in No 10 when Russia‘s invasion of Crimea sent prices surging here in the UK.

“I come to this debate with a simple view: Britain will be stronger, safer and less exposed if it produces more home-grown energy of every kind.”

She was unambiguous on North Sea drilling: “So it is entirely sensible to support continued domestic oil and gas production in the North Sea.

“If we do not produce that gas here, we will not stop needing it. We will simply import more of it.”

Ms Singh, who previously advised both the Government and Shell on energy policy, tempered her argument by noting the North Sea was “not a limitless national asset” — but insisted the country would depend on oil and gas for the “foreseeable future” regardless.

Miliband squeezed from all sides

Writing in The Telegraph, Ms Singh’s intervention deepens the pressure on a minister already fielding criticism from multiple directions. Labour’s time in office has seen new drilling permits effectively frozen and the windfall levy on producers pushed to 78 per cent — a combination that industry figures warn is bringing forward the basin’s decline rather than managing it.

The boss of Octopus Energy, Greg Jackson, whose company supplies more British households with gas and electricity than any other, has separately called on ministers to draw on whatever the North Sea can still offer.

Resistance to Miliband’s stance has spread into Labour’s own coalition. Both Unite and the GMB — the unions that backed the party into power — have pushed back, as has the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Economists and industry bodies argue that squeezing domestic output serves no one: it costs jobs, shrinks the tax base and simply switches British consumption to higher-carbon imported gas.

The Government faces countervailing pressure from the left, with Green Party activists and Labour’s own radical wing demanding no retreat on the drilling ban, according to the Telegraph report.

‘Not ideological’

Miliband rejected suggestions on Sunday that his position was driven by dogma rather than evidence.

Speaking on LBC Radio, he said: “I don’t see it that way at all. As I explained, new licences won’t make a material difference.

“Our reliance on fossil fuels is costing us, in Russia and Ukraine, tens of billions of pounds.

“I think the North Sea has produced important revenue, but our excessive dependence on fossil fuels has been a massive problem.”

Billions of barrels left in the ground

A report released Monday by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology put hard numbers on the cost of the current policy. Analysts identified more than 4.6 billion barrels of oil and gas sitting in areas that have never been licensed for extraction and are now, under Labour’s moratorium, permanently beyond reach.

It warned: “Under current policy, no new licences for O&G will be issued, meaning these resources would not be viable for extraction.” In 2018 the Express reported on a study which found up to 20 billion barrels could be supplied to the UK by the North Sea, enough to last an estimated 20 years.