As Ed Miliband shuts down UK gas fields - we blow £20bn buying it from Norway instead

While Miliband wages ideological war on Britain’s oil and gas industry, the country has just committed to spending a massive £20billion on imported Norwegian gas.

That’s enough to heat five million homes a year until 2035.

The deal, struck by British Gas-owner Centrica with Norway’s state energy giant Equinor, proves that Miliband’s war on domestic production isn’t cutting fossil fuel use.

It’s simply exporting it. Along with the British jobs, tax revenues and energy security that come with it.

It’s economic and strategic self-harm on a grand scale.

Instead of using our own gas reserves, Miliband is taxing UK producers out of existence, with an effective offshore rate of 78%.

Unsurprisingly, North Sea production is now plunging at 11% a year. That’s more than double the decline forecast before his policies took hold.

The North Sea still holds billions of pounds’ worth of fossil fuels. But one man is blocking us from using them.

Incredibly, it’s the man in charge of our energy policy.

The man Express readers reckon is doing even more damage to the UK economy than chancellor Rachel Reeves, which really takes some doing.

This might make sense if Miliband was replacing gas with renewables. He isn’t. We’re just paying foreign governments to do the drilling instead.

That will leave us dependent on decades of energy imports. Not just until 2035, but far beyond.

It’s an unprecedented economic own goal. No other advanced economy in the world behaves like this.

Least of all sensible and social democratic Norway, which is still drilling, selling and growing rich from its natural resources.

Its people are prosperous, its budget is balanced and its public services are pristine. That's in marked contrast to shabby, declining Britain whose Chancellor can't balance the books.

A huge chunk of Norway's wealth comes from us, as we buy half of our gas from the country.

We're hooked on imports while Miliband chokes off domestic output to meet his net zero agenda.

No wonder our energy bills are the highest in the developed world, squeezing cash-strapped families and businesses. Miliband is also costing the Treasury billions in lost tax revenues.

Worse still, we’re outsourcing emissions, not cutting them. Norwegian gas isn’t any greener than British gas. Piping it hundreds of miles adds to the carbon footprint.

And for what? A distant dream of heat pumps and hydrogen that’s still years away from scale.

Even by 2030, the UK will need at least 42billion of cubic metres of gas a year. At best, we’ll be producing just 12billion.

The rest we’ll pay other countries for. Lucky Norway. Unlucky us.

Miliband claims to be delivering energy independence. The truth is the opposite.

We now import nearly two-thirds of our gas, including from dodgy dictatorships like Qatar.

We’re also importing record levels of electricity and oil. We're becoming dependent on others for the basics of modern life.

Every major country is transitioning to cleaner energy, but none are shutting down their industries first.

Only Britain is choosing to increase emissions, shrink revenues, destroy jobs and deepen its reliance on foreign powers. All to make Ed Miliband look virtuous. It's an economic calamity.