§ 9. Mr. Dykesasked the Secretary of State for Energy how many oil companies have submitted written comments to his Department in connection with the recent consultative document on the sixth round of North Sea licence applications.
§ 25. Mr. Grayasked the Secretary of State for Energy what representations he has so far received in connection with the consultative document on the sixth round of licensing.
§ Mr. BennI have not received any comments from individual companies on the consultative document about the next round of offshore licensing but a number of organisations have sent me their views. These are being considered and a further announcement will be made later.
§ Mr. DykesI thank the Secretary of State for his answer. When does he think we shall come to the next stage, when applications are invited? Can he be more explicit on the criteria for financial backing for independent oil companies when they make their applications, going beyond the terms of the consultative document?
§ Mr. BennI appreciate the hon. Gentleman's interest. If there are genuine confusions in our document—and I do not 1027 believe that there are—I shall ensure that they are clarified as soon as possible, but I think that it would be wrong to make a mid-term comment on a consultative document. The House will need to wait until I have assessed the arguments, which I am doing very seriously. I shall be announcing our conclusions upon them, and the dates will flow from them.
§ Mr. GrayDoes the Secretary of State accept that one of the worries of many oil companies at the moment relates not directly to the sixth round but to the fact that licences are being granted between rounds to the British National Oil Corporation? Does he also accept that if there is too much intermediate licensing there will be a danger of inhibiting investment in the North Sea? Does he agree that although we have a lot of investment of our own it is essential that we have continuing investment from overseas investors too?
§ Mr. BennI have never doubted the latter point. Nor has there been any check, by a single day, on the flow of inward investment from the private oil companies, despite the policy we have introduced. The public sector has got only about 24 per cent. of the North Sea under the arrangements I have made. We started from a level which began with the previous Conservative Government's licensing round, which gave nothing to the public sector. To have less than a quarter of the North Sea in the public sector and then to find that every move is denounced as threatening the North Sea can only be read by me and others as indicating that the Conservative Party would rather that there was not a public sector involvement at all. If that is the basis upon which the Conservatives wish to put these issues to the public in due course, that is for them. In the light of the experience of countries in the Middle East and Latin America which were exploited by the oil companies without any regard for the interests of the people living there, I believe that there is a wide welcome for the Government's policy. I wish that the Conservative Party would support it.