True to form, Rachel Reeves’s autumn Budget didn’t land smoothly. The publication of the OBR report she was supposed to unveil during her announcement meant that broadcasters, politicians and the public were more focused on scanning the leaked document than the speech she had been preparing for months. The headlines have focused on a huge uptick in welfare spending, stealth taxes which may or may not constitute a Labour manifesto pledge and the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap (Labour backbenchers can breathe a sigh of relief). What has received relatively less coverage is the North Sea – and just how energy-friendly Labour’s Budget is. 

Reeves’s fiscal statement will have come as a disappointment to the oil industry, which had spent much time urging the Chancellor to scrap the windfall tax on the sector. Formerly known as the Energy Profits Levy, the tax on oil and gas profits was announced in May 2022 by then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak: initially set at 25 per cent, Jeremy Hunt increased the........

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