£13.3bn tax breaks for oil and gas firms could have funded 7 years of support for North Sea workers – Greenpeace

• New government data reveals how billions in public money (£13.3 billion) has been spent on tax breaks for fossil fuel firms, undermining the UK’s own climate commitments
• Greenpeace analysis shows this total could have fully funded seven years of support for North Sea workers to securely transition to renewable industries
• Alternatively, the £13.3bn could alternatively have insulated every fuel-poor home in England (3.17 million homes) OR equipped every school and NHS hospital in England with onsite solar five times over. 
• Campaigners warn the findings expose “perverse” Treasury priorities while millions of UK households face crippling energy bills and soaring inflation 

New figures quietly released by the UK government reveal the astronomical scale of taxpayer support enjoyed by the fossil fuel industry – totaling £13.3 billion in tax breaks over a seven-year period. This figure excludes tax reliefs paid to oil companies for decommissioning, which, if included, would take the total over £20 billion. 

Greenpeace calculates this £13-billion handout could have fully funded a secure transition for North Sea oil and gas workers for seven years – which would include job creation in wind manufacturing, investment in green infrastructure and a dedicated training fund for displaced oil and gas workers. 

Instead, as the basin’s natural reserves decline, the government is failing to invest sufficiently in the jobs, training and infrastructure for the workforce to fairly transition to the clean energy sector. 

Fuelling profits, stranding workers

The findings have triggered condemnation from campaigners who point out that public money is being gifted to an industry that is already drowning in cash. 

Following the outbreak of the war in Iran, oil majors have reaped an eye-watering geopolitical windfall. In a single four-week window this spring, the combined market value of Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor, and Harbour Energy surged by £73.5 billion. 

In the 2025/26 financial year alone, oil and gas firms were handed £1.9 billion in tax breaks. Coincidentally, this is the same amount demanded last year by major trade unions to annually fund the Emergency Just Transition package – a scheme designed to create permanent, unionised renewable energy jobs for displaced fossil fuel workers. 

The narrative that drilling in the North Sea protects British jobs or national energy security has been debunked. The North Sea is a rapidly maturing basin, with around 90% of reserves “already drained dry”. Despite the Conservative government handing out hundreds of drilling licenses, UK oil and gas employment has halved over the past decade – from 441,000 in 2013 to just 213,00 in 2023. 

Furthermore, the hundreds of North Sea oil and gas licenses granted by the Conservatives over 14 years have yielded just 36 days of extra gas.

What else could the £13.3 billion have bought?

This heavy subsidisation of a declining sector stands in stark contrast to the explosive growth of the Net Zero sector. Recent research from CBI Economics shows that the green economy is vastly outstripping the wider economy on jobs, wages and growth – delivering economic benefits to the whole of the UK. 

Greenpeace analysis reveals how this squandered £13.3 billion could have been redirected to lower household energy bills, create high-quality green jobs, and decarbonise public infrastructure:

Rudy Schulkind, political campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: 

“It is a moral and political failure that the UK government is still pouring billions into tax breaks for climate-wrecking fossil fuel giants while ordinary households struggle with soaring bills and growing climate chaos. 

“We’re being forced to subsidise an industry already reaping obscene profits at the expense of our own lives and livelihoods. The government must find the courage to scrap these handouts for the oil and gas giants driving this crisis and start funding a fair, net-zero future for us all.”

Connor Watt, Worker Organiser Representative from Platform said: 

“As this new analysis shows, this government could have been supporting oil and gas workers, but instead they have chosen to give tax breaks to profit-hungry oil and gas firms when ordinary people are struggling to pay their bills and workers are being hung out to dry.

“Workers have set out clearly what they need: investment that creates permanent, unionised renewable energy jobs in public and community-owned wind manufacturing, alongside job-creating investment in ports, and genuine support for oil and gas workers to transition into the industries of the future. It’s high time the government stood up to giant corporations and delivered for the working people of the UK.” 

ENDS

Notes to Editors

• While some of the tax reliefs detailed in this analysis are accessible to multiple industries, Greenpeace argues that subsidising fossil fuel extraction – a sector generating historic profits while driving climate breakdown – undermines the UK’s own climate goals, representing a regressive use of taxpayer funds during a cost of living crisis. 
• The £13.3 billion figure includes two types of producer relief: ring-fence first-year capital allowances for plant and machinery, and allowances against the supplementary charge (the Investment Allowance, the Cluster Area Allowance and the Onshore Allowance). These tax breaks are designed to incentivise oil and gas projects and encourage investment by permitting oil companies to deduct particular types of spending and investment from their tax bill.
• The analysis has excluded decommissioning tax relief from the £13.3bn figure, as Greenpeace UK is not calling for those reliefs to be scrapped.
• The government has stated that its COFFIS commitments include “Developing a national phase-out strategy for fossil fuel incentives and support measures within a clear timeline, by COP31.”

Methodology & References

The full methodology used for Greenpeace UK’s analysis is available upon request. Key data sources include:

1. Clean Power: Wind turbine figures utilise Arup’s capital cost index for DESNZ (July 2025).
2. Home insulation – Insulation metrics utilise the National Audit Office’s (NAO) assessment of ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme (October 2025). 
3. NHS hospitals – Derived from the NHS Digital ERIC site dataset and typical solar capacity per site is taken from Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) case studies. (SOURCE Eddisons Education, Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), accessed May 2026; corroborated by Hookway and conceptenergy.org. Salix Finance PSDS school case cards). 
4. Education – Based on the DfE Schools, pupils and their characteristics data and the PSDS evidence base. 
5. North Sea workers – Just Transition figures utilise the joint union coalition demand published May 2025. 
6. Bill Support – Warm Home Discount metrics use the official government statutory updates.