Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Key Points

• Regulates offshore licences for searching, drilling and recovering petroleum from UK waters.
• A wide range of amendments sought climate, carbon intensity and just transition tests to be applied by the regulator before inviting new licences.
• Proposals to ban or restrict new licences until environmental protections (e.g., flaring and venting bans) are in place, or to exclude certain areas or companies (e.g., Russian firms or Marine Protected Areas), were made but not adopted.
• Some amendments would shift the bill’s objective away from maximising oil recovery toward phase‑out, climate targets or a just transition, but these changes were not carried.
• Many climate/transition ideas were proposed (e.g., home energy efficiency tests, Energy Charter tests, Just Transition plans), but most did not progress to become part of the bill’s core requirements.

Progress

The bill completed its Second and Third Readings in the Commons and has proceeded to the Lords, where it is currently in Committee Stage (as of April 2024).

Voting

In the Commons, the bill received broad support to pass main stages, while attempts to insert climate and transition requirements via amendments were overwhelmingly defeated or not selected, reflecting a preference for keeping the bill focused on licensing mechanics rather than new regulatory tests.