John Healey stood in front of two giant robotic arms this week and promised to ‘make Great Britain Growth Britain again’. The Chancellor also promised, borrowing a catchphrase from his neighbour in No. 10, to deliver ‘good growth in every postcode’.

In the North Sea, 150 miles east off the coast of Aberdeen, lies the first big test of this promise. The 6,000-ton Jackdaw extraction platform is ready to start pumping gas from a field three miles below the surface.

Twenty years after the Jackdaw field was first successfully prospected, it will, at the stroke of a ministerial pen, finally be allowed to operate. Industry bosses have been told to prepare for a possible government handshaking visit on Tuesday, though the Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh could announce approval as early as Monday. Rosebank – Jackdaw’s sister field, which could produce gas but mainly oil – is also expected to be approved, though the decision will likely come at a later date.

Jackdaw meets the postcode part of Healey and Andy Burnham’s promise. Aberdeen has lost a third of its offshore energy jobs in a decade. Some in the granite city fear further decline could finish it off. The human stakes extend beyond GDP: over the same period, ‘deaths of despair’ – from drugs, alcohol and suicide – rose by 42 per cent in Aberdeen, against 28 per cent across Scotland. Employment, investment and opportunity are literally matters of life and death in these postcodes.

We should extract every last dropof oil and pocket of gas left in the North Sea, but we need to go further

We should extract every last dropof oil and pocket of gas left in the North Sea, but we need to go further

Approving Jackdaw is the right thing for the rest of Britain, too. The natural gas extracted from its wells will be vital for our energy security. At peak production, Jackdaw could pump out 6 per cent of North Sea capacity – enough to heat 1.4 million homes. Almost all of it will be consumed domestically, which is vital given the state of our storage facilities. Despite a scorching summer, gas stores are at their most depleted since at least 2018. We’re heading into winter just a third full – down from 45 per cent a year ago. There is even an environmental case to be made. Industry estimates suggest refusing Jackdaw and importing American gas instead would add four million extra tons of greenhouse gas over the project’s lifespan.

But the bigger prize lies in Rosebank and beyond. The two projects could support 3,500 jobs and deliver £11 billion in economic value to the north-east of Scotland, as well as an extra £1.4 billion to the Chancellor’s coffers this parliament. Britain is going to be using oil and gas for decades. Even the Climate Change Committee assumes our consumption in 2050 will be just a fifth of today’s level. At least half of that could be met by what lies beneath the North Sea.........

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