News the licences will help britain meet its net zero pledge. Were announcing these new licences in the north sea with more to come , which will ensure more to come, which will ensure our Energy Security moving forward. It means well be less reliant on hostile foreign actors for our energy baseload, for the fossil fuels that were going to be relying on. For some years come, which will mean years to come, which will mean that will be reducing our c02 that we will be reducing our c02 emissions not importing those emissions by not importing those fossil fuels. But the announcement on future and further Carbon Capture and storage projects means that well be taking that Carbon Dioxide of atmosphere dioxide out of the atmosphere and it onto the north and storing it onto the north sea, means that getting to sea, which means that getting to net zero will be more achievable i k m an k man has been a british man has been released from prison in cyprus after sentenced for the after being sentenced for the manslaughter of his wife. David hunter was given a two yearjail hunter was given a two year jail term for killing his terminally ill at their home in paphos ill wife at their home in paphos in 2021. The 76 year old has been released after cypriot authorities calculated his time to serve. David hunter claimed to serve. David hunter claimed his wife asked him to end her life as she suffered from blood cancen life as she suffered from blood cancer. He spoke of his relief outside court a short time ago. Outside court a short time ago. Thank you to all the people whove donated to me, and especially my mates, my workmates. I dont know where workmates. I dont know where id be without. I hope im id be without. I hope im feeling the same as my family when im talking about that. Im talking about all my lads, all the family. When you work in the family. When you work in a quarry for a family plans to house migrants on the bibby stockholm barge in dorset could face delays after reports the facility hasnt received approval from local fire services. The barge is expected to accommodate around 500 men, but there are fears the vessel could present a fire danger. The government says the barge is undergoing final preparations to comply with regulations. New comply with regulations. New rules have come into force which will prevent serious criminals from gaining british citizenship. Changes to the good character requirement will see tougher rules applied to anyone who has received a 12 month prison sentence. Currently, sentence. Currently, applications are normally refuse for people whove been given a four year jail term. 1 for people whove been given a four yearjail term. 1 in 4 gps four yearjail term. 1 in 4 gps now have private medical insurance due to concerns over long nhs waiting lists. Insurance due to concerns over long nhs waiting lists. A survey long nhs waiting lists. A survey found 21 have personal insurance and 4 have it through their employer. It comes as the nhs waiting lists in england have reached a record level of 7. 4 million patients awaiting routine treatment. A court of routine treatment. A court of appealis routine treatment. A court of appeal is set to give its ruling on the right to wild camp in Dartmoor National park. Earlier this year, a High Court Judge ruled against granting people the right to pitch tents overnight without obtaining landowners permission. Landowners permission. Campaigners say theres a long established precedent of wild camping in the National Park in devon times running out for people to use any non barcoded stamps. Todays the last day they can be used from the 1st of august old stamp designs without the barcode cant be used or the recipient will be asked to cover the cost. The changes affect any the cost. The changes affect any non barcoded stamps featuring the late queens profile on a plain background special issue stamps or christmas themed editions will remain in use. This is gb news. More from me shortly. Now though, its back to mark and. To mark and. Pip and welcome back to the live desk with rishi sunak. The Prime Minister shortly set to announce hundreds of new licences for nonh hundreds of new licences for north sea oil and Gas Exploration. The start of exploration. The start of a campaign, perhaps secure britains Energy Security. Britains Energy Security. But conservative mp Chris Skidmore, former uk cabinet minister for energy and chair of the net zero review, has criticised the move, saying excuse me, it is on the wrong side of the future of the economy. Modern voters and history. History. A bit difficult to swallow. Therefore so lets speak to our scotland reporter tony maguire, who can join us from grangemouth in scotland, of the six in scotland, one of the six remaining refineries in the remaining Oil Refineries in the uk. And tony, as we say, were expecting more in about 20 minutes, but perhaps a clue as to what we may prime to what we may get. Prime minister reporters minister has spoken to reporters saying efficient saying that its more efficient to actually produce our own oil and gas and shipping it halfway around the. World. Around the. World. Yes, thats right. And certainly one of the lines that were hearing time and time again is to avoid the unnecessary reliance on hostile states such as russia. And of states such as russia. And of course, i think everybody remember that astronomical pnces remember that astronomical prices to which petrol rose following the russian invasion of ukraine. And certainly that is one of the several reasons that rishi sunak is looking to invest more. I think another invest more. I think another quite interesting thing that the Prime Minister came out with yesterday is that even after 2050, once we are Carbon Neutral as a nation , we will still rely as a nation, we will still rely on oil and gas to furnish around 25 of our energy needs. So this 25 of our energy needs. So this move today with this two prong approach into granting further oil and gas licences in the nonh oil and gas licences in the north sea , as well as the carbon north sea, as well as the Carbon Capture and storage plan with project acorn in scotland and project acorn in scotland and project viking down on the humber. And the plan is really to take this forward. And if you to take this forward. And if you can cast your mind back to cop26 in glasgow , one of the big in glasgow, one of the big messages from that week was a Just Transition plan, and that is to maximise the economy and sustainable jobs as the country moves into a period of becoming net zero. So as you also mentioned, however, there are been critics. Ed miliband has accused the government of a cultural war and climate. And in cultural war and climate. And in taking maybe a more protract acted approach, as alex salmond , whos waiting to celebrate until he sees the colour of rishi sunaks money. However if you look at the plant behind me, about 1700 workers there of the almost quarter of a million around Great Britain that work in the oil and gas sector behind me, put out about 9,000,000l a day. And obviously that makes it day. And obviously that makes it one of the biggest polluters in the country. So time will really tell to see whether this plan for sunak of reusing and for rishi sunak of reusing and refurb fishing, the legacy transfer support networks and Production Networks that have gone into oil and gas for this Carbon Capture will actually come good and hopefully make the people over here at ineos behind me feel a little less bad about the amount of Carbon Monoxide theyre pumping into the atmosphere. Yeah with the steam and the smoke rising behind you into the sky. Tony, you very much indeed tony, thank you very much indeed for that. For that. Lets get more analysis now from our economics and Business Editor halligan with on the editor Liam Halligan with on the money. How do you read it then . Money. How do you read it then . Liam . Is it is it good for the economy . Theres certainly a lot of political changes happening now. I think that uxbridge and South Ruislip by election, which the tories just about won because of local opposition to sadiq khans ulez ultra low emission zone it kind of unearthed a huge debate thats been going on just outside the mainstream. But certainly on Government Back benches. Certainly on Government Back benches. Look, the main problem benches. Look, the main problem weve got is that oil and gas from the north sea is receding. Weve gone down from over two and a half, almost 3 Million Barrels of oil and gas equivalent a day in 20 in the year 2000 to around 1 million now. And yet were using a lot more oil and gas. And oil and gas is still accounts for three quarters of our electric of our total energy including electricity, transport and heating and so on. And its much better for the environment as rishi sunak says, to produce our own oil and gas if were to going need oil and gas rather than importing it. If we import lng , liquefied natural gas from lng, liquefied natural gas from america , you have to get the gas america, you have to get the gas in america. You have to turn it into a liquid, put it on a diesel ship, 3500 miles across the atlantic. Regasify it. It uses three times more carbon than just drilling our own gas in the north sea. This at all . This at all . Well, because okay, its being branded a reckless decision. Decision. Okay . Okay . People use words , but do they people use words, but do they really stack up with reality . I really stack up with reality . I repeat, three quarters of our energy that we currently use in this country is oil and gas. And by the end of 2030, it will still be half. And thats according to the head of the Climate Change commission, which is the governments own kind of in house environmental consultancy. Everyone around consultancy. So everyone around the world realises were going to need oil and gas for a long time, even though were going to be less and less be using less and less and less oil gas. But its going to oil and gas. But its going to take years this take years to unravel this completely. And have a look at this. Maybe this is what readers and listeners and viewers really want know. Lets have a look want to know. Lets have a look at this graphic these at this graphic here. These numbers are really hard to find, but them out over the but i dug them out over the weekend was writing weekend when i was writing a newspaper column. These are residential user electricity residential end user electricity pnces residential end user electricity prices , right. In june 2023. Prices, right. In june 2023. That thing on the right, thats just its euros per kilowatt houn just its euros per kilowatt hour, but its a bit complicated. But you can get the idea. So in the uk we are paying ,45 roughly per kilowatt hour for electricity. For our residential electricity. Look numbers in france look at the numbers in france where theyve got lots of nuclear ,27, spain ,20. Jersey germany of course have closed down all their Nuclear Power and theyre heavily reliant on russian gas. So theyre suffering. Even theyre suffering. But even theyre cheaper us. And look at the cheaper than us. And look at the us ,18. 9 per kilowatt hour. So we are paying the euros. The eu average, by the way, is about ,2,025. So we are paying hugely more for electricity even more for our electricity even though got all these though weve got all these renewables us. And the reason is that you use lots of that when you use lots of renewables, you have to have these gas fired power stations just there on standby so just sitting there on standby so you can use them on the days and even weeks when the wind doesnt blow sun doesnt shine. Blow and the sun doesnt shine. And particularly happens in and that particularly happens in Winter Energy is winter when demand for energy is very, very high. So whats going on here . Why is back in the cameron days the tories said, 90, 9, cameron days the tories said, go, go, vote blue, go get green because they were trying to take votes off the lib dems. Frankly, now the tories real election battle is in the red wall and theyre going up against labour voters of labour voters and a lot of labour voters. They traditional labour voters. They traditional labour voters they really dont like voters, they really dont like this net stuff at all this net zero stuff at all because feel theyre the because they feel theyre the poorer, vulnerable poorer, more vulnerable households theyre going to have to the likes of to pay. Thats why the likes of the a huge union, our third the gmb, a huge union, our third Biggest Union, hugely against keir starmer, banning licences for new north sea oil and gas. The same with unite , the second the same with unite, the second Biggest Union in the country. So this isnt straightforward at all. Youre now getting splits in the labor party and indeed in the tory party. You just read out something from chris out something there from Chris Skidmore. Former skidmore. Hes a former minister, former high flyer, a lot of younger tories want this net zero stuff. So a lot of people will say its political splits, dont what splits, they dont know what were were really were doing, what were really seeing for first time seeing here for the first time in long time. And i think gb in a long time. And i think gb news has to bring this news has helped to bring this about debate , not about is a proper debate, not necessarily , yes, were necessarily about, yes, were going to move away from oil and gas. Clearly we are. But how we do it and most importantly, who pays . We think that perhaps in the next 50 minutes we may hear that the lay off, if you like, is Carbon Capture technology. Thats how hes going to balance the books on the environment. But theres another debate on what type of Carbon Capture technology and whether you can use that to actually generate rather than just sticking the stuff in the ground. What Carbon Capture technology to explain is when technology is to explain is when you generate fossil fuels and you generate fossil fuels and you burn fossil fuels, you then the carbon thats emitted , you the carbon thats emitted, you then bury it in old oil and gas fields in the north sea. You know, below, below the sea, below the seabed. And there are major Carbon Capture facilities being built in tyne in tyneside and teesside, where the argument the jobs are going to come. Thats right. And you do get jobs from those, some some environmentalist would say, just to be completely fair, that carbon excuse Carbon Capture is just an excuse for continuing use fossil for continuing to use fossil fuels. Its a of continuing fuels. Its a way of continuing to fossil fuels. I would say to use fossil fuels. I would say as an analyst, an ofcom regulated analyst, i would say that actually its clear we are going to need oil and gas for quite a few years. Even the quite a few years. Even the Climate ChangeCommission Says that and what the tories that and thats what the tories are so if you are are talking about. So if you are going and make that less going to try and make that less damaging for the environment, then carbon could help. Then Carbon Capture could help. That a lot well, given that a lot of people will be scratching their heads when hear this, why heads when we hear all this, why is then its full is he then saying its full speed ahead on the 2030 ban on diesel and petrol cars . Because it seems that, you know , i think it seems that, you know, i think the political reality , he the political reality, he doesnt want to frighten the horses too much. You know, hes got the tory reform group, the so called one nafion and reform group, the so called one nation and just nation tories and we just heard from skidmore there , from Chris Skidmore there, whos, you know, hes never going get another going to get into another sunak government, right . So maybe he thinks going lose the thinks theyre to going lose the next dont know. So next election. I dont know. So youve in the tory youve got splits in the tory party i chance my party i would i would chance my arm here though, mark. I would say that 2030 ban say i dont think that 2030 ban will. I think the will survive. I think the technological reality be is that the car making industry across the car making industry across the world just isnt ready for it. Cant get them made in time at the moment. Just to be clear, the is that by 2030 you the law is that by 2030 you cant buy a new petrol or diesel car. In the uk , you can still car. In the uk, you can still buy second hand petrol and diesel cars and classic cars and vintage cars and all the rest of it. You buy a new it. But you cant buy a new petrol car in the uk petrol and diesel car in the uk by 2030. German we have shifted that 2035. I think we will that to 2035. I think we will end up doing that now. For business, itll be bad for business, couldnt it . Mean what with itll be bad for business, cou tata it . Mean what with itll be bad for business, cou tata announcementt with itll be bad for business, cou tata announcement, with itll be bad for business, cou tata announcement, investing the tata announcement, investing in theyre in the battery plant, theyre working 2030. Working towards 2030. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They suddenly backtracking. They suddenly backtracking. Theyre working for 2030 in order to get them to invest in that plant. Having failed to get anyone of these anyone to invest in any of these gigafactories for years, weve had to bung them half £1 billion. Whats worse for billion. So whats worse