UK government touts 'trillion pound' oil fund idea
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The gist
UK Chancellor John Healey announced a £2bn Energy Wealth Fund as the Jackdaw gas field was approved.
The Treasury says a missed oil fund could have been worth a trillion pounds.
Background
John Healey is the UK Chancellor, the government minister in charge of the Treasury. He announced the Energy Wealth Fund on the same day Energy Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said regulators could grant consent for the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea, which is due to supply gas to Britain this winter. The 'trillion pound' figure comes from internal Treasury modelling that assumes £200bn of historical North Sea receipts had been invested with no withdrawals and grown at a rate comparable to Norway's fund. The announcement came in the same week national debt hit £3tn for the first time.
How it unfolded
- Jun 2022The government approved development of the Jackdaw gas field after Russia's invasion of Ukraine set off an energy crisis.
- 2025A court ruled the Jackdaw approval unlawful following litigation by environmental groups, leaving the field to await a fresh decision.
- Oct 21, 2026Energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said the regulator can grant consent for Jackdaw gas production and the field will start supplying gas to Britain this winter.
- Oct 21, 2026Chancellor John Healey announced an Energy Wealth Fund with £2bn diverted from the existing National Wealth Fund, and Treasury officials calculated for the first time what a missing British sovereign wealth fund could have been worth.
- Oct 21, 2026The national debt hit £3tn for the first time in the same week.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- Healey said the proceeds of oil and gas coming ashore now can be invested for future generations, and that had Britain acted when North Sea oil was first discovered in the 1980s it would probably have a sovereign wealth fund worth a trillion pounds.
- Official
- Energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said the Jackdaw decision would support energy security and help minimize the use of higher-emission imported fuels during the shift to renewables and nuclear power.
- Insider
- An insider said Norway demonstrates the power of long-term investment and the government wants to learn from that principle rather than copy its model wholesale, calling the past failure a missed opportunity.
- SNP
- The SNP said UK politicians tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the Scottish people after the Chancellor admitted a North Sea sovereign wealth fund would be worth £1 trillion.
- Economists
- Economists critical of the Margaret Thatcher era said peak oil revenues were frittered away in pre-election tax cuts, which ended up being spent on 1980s garden conservatories, while others said revenues under subsequent governments were squandered on wasteful government spending.