The Energy Secretary's decision to approve the Jackdaw gas field says it will protect hundreds of jobs. Her own decision document counts 27 new jobs and calls the total small.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. The North Sea Transition Authority granted consent for the Jackdaw gas field on 21 October 2026, and the press release announcing it says the decision is "protecting hundreds of jobs and adding an estimated £2.9 billion to the UK economy" [1]. The Energy Secretary's own 92-page decision document, published the same day, counts the jobs behind that claim: "27 new direct jobs" plus "273 existing jobs" safeguarded, a total she herself says "is small in the context of the national economy and the wider oil and gas related workforce" (page 3) [2]. The same document discloses that a consultee's rival estimate of the project's climate damage, £16.1 billion, more than five times the claimed economic benefit, was dismissed by the Secretary of State as "speculative" (page 63), a label not applied to the developer's own £2.9 billion figure. And the press release's description of why a new decision was needed at all, "it follows the Supreme Court's ruling on the Finch case in 2024" [1], leaves out what the decision document says on its second page: the original 2022 consent "was challenged and ruled unlawful" and this is "a re-determination of the decision which was reduced (quashed)" (page 5) [2]. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
Jackdaw is a gas field in the Central North Sea, about 150 miles east of Aberdeen, first consented in 2022. On 21 October 2026 the North Sea Transition Authority granted it consent to actually produce gas, and the government framed the news as part of a bigger package: Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh's approval, and Chancellor John Healey's new Energy Wealth Fund, a £2 billion downpayment on reinvesting North Sea revenues into the green transition [1]. Four ministers and the NSTA's chief executive are quoted in the release, all positive. What none of them mention is that this is not a first approval. It is a second one, forced by a court that threw out the first.
The claims, tested
| The claim | What we found | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The decision is "protecting hundreds of jobs", a line repeated by Prime Minister Andy Burnham: "I welcome the Energy Secretary's decision, which will protect hundreds of jobs and help keep millions of homes warm this winter" [1] | The decision document's own figure: "Jackdaw would create 27 new direct jobs and safeguard 273 existing jobs that would otherwise be lost when Shearwater would have ceased to operate." The Secretary of State "recognises that the number of direct jobs is small in the context of the national economy and the wider oil and gas related workforce" (page 3) [2] | 27 plus 273 does round to "hundreds". But nine in ten of those jobs are existing roles being kept, not created, and the minister who signed the document calling that total "small" is not the minister whose quote calls it a reason to celebrate |
| The project is "adding an estimated £2.9 billion to the UK economy" [1] | The decision document traces the figure to the developer: "the operating expenditure, employment and other activity during Jackdaw's operational phase could generate around £2.9 billion of GVA" (page 63). The same page records a consultee estimate that climate damage from the project's 35.8 MtCO2e emissions could reach "£16.1 billion", which the Secretary of State calls "speculative" and rejects on methodological grounds, without applying the same test to the developer's own unaudited number [2] | The £2.9 billion in the press release is the developer's own estimate, presented as settled fact. The decision document applies more scepticism to the rival estimate that argues against the project than to the one that argues for it |
| "It follows the Supreme Court's ruling on the Finch case in 2024, which means North Sea operators are now required to consider the impact of burning the extracted oil and gas in environmental impact assessments" [1] | The decision document, page 2: "The Secretary of State under a previous Government agreed to the grant of consent on 27 May 2022... In January 2025, the Court of Session held that the Jackdaw consent was unlawful because downstream emissions had not been taken into account. This decision is therefore a re-determination of the decision which was reduced (quashed)" (page 5) [2]. Scotland's Court of Session, Lord Ericht presiding, ruled on 30 January 2025 that the government "acted unlawfully by failing to assess downstream emissions" [3] | The press release's sentence is true but written to read as routine regulatory housekeeping. It does not use the words "unlawful", "quashed" or "court", all of which the decision document it is built on uses about this specific project |
The mistakes, counted
"Hundreds of jobs" is a real number dressed as a bigger one (1). The developer's own figures, repeated without challenge in the decision document, are 27 new roles and 273 existing roles kept on at the Shearwater platform that Jackdaw shares infrastructure with [2]. Safeguarding 273 jobs that would otherwise disappear is a genuine outcome for the people involved, and the decision document says so directly: that employment "will nevertheless be meaningful to the individuals, contractors, supply-chain businesses and communities... directly affected" (page 3) [2]. But the same document, in the same breath, calls the total "small in the context of the national economy", a qualifier the press release and the Prime Minister's quote both drop.
The £2.9 billion benefit gets a pass the £16.1 billion cost estimate does not (2). Both figures come from parties with a stake in the outcome: the developer for the GVA estimate, objecting consultees for the climate-damage estimate [2]. The decision document interrogates the methodology behind the larger, negative figure in detail, rejecting its £2 million "value of prevented fatality" assumption as inconsistent with government practice, and calls the whole estimate "speculative". It applies no equivalent scrutiny to the developer's own operating-expenditure projections before the press release repeats them as an "estimated" fact.
The press release's own account of why this decision exists skips the finding that made it necessary (3). The original Jackdaw consent, granted in May and June 2022, was not simply overtaken by new rules. It was challenged by Greenpeace UK and Uplift, and on 30 January 2025 the Court of Session held that the government had acted unlawfully, because it had not assessed the emissions that would result from eventually burning the gas Jackdaw produces [3]. The decision document calls this what it is: the earlier consent "was reduced (quashed)" (page 5) [2]. The press release's version, "it follows the Supreme Court's ruling on the Finch case", is accurate as far as it goes, but a reader who does not already know the Jackdaw litigation would have no way to learn from this document that the project in front of them lost in court once already.
Credit where due
The decision document itself is considerably more candid than the press release built on it. It names the £16.1 billion rival estimate rather than ignoring it, states plainly that the Secretary of State has given "moderate adverse weight" to greenhouse gas emissions she accepts are a "significant effect on the environment" (page 1) [2], and does not pretend the 2022 consent was simply updated rather than overturned. The project's emissions record is also genuinely improved, not just claimed to be: the document notes that "modifications have already been made during the construction phase which lower the emissions intensity of the project", a change made under "previous regulatory action" rather than announced for this release [2].
Verdict
Four stars, from three documented mistakes. The decision document the government published alongside this announcement is the strongest evidence against the announcement's own framing: it counts 300 jobs and calls that small, it scrutinises the estimate against the project more than the estimate for it, and it uses the word "unlawful" about a consent the press release only gestures at having needed updating. None of that makes the underlying decision wrong. It means the public account of it was written to sound better than the document it was drawn from.
The star score counts three documented mistakes. First, the press release's "protecting hundreds of jobs" repeats a total (27 new, 273 safeguarded) that the decision document itself calls "small in the context of the national economy", a qualifier dropped from the public announcement. Second, the "estimated £2.9 billion" economic benefit is the developer's own unaudited figure, while a consultee's rival £16.1 billion climate-damage estimate, covering the same project, is dismissed in the same document as "speculative" without equivalent scrutiny applied to the developer's number. Third, the press release's explanation for why a fresh decision was needed, "it follows the Supreme Court's ruling on the Finch case", omits that the Court of Session ruled the original 2022 consent unlawful and quashed it, a finding the decision document itself states in its own words. Three falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding about the conduct of any named minister or official; the Secretary of State's own decision document discloses each of the facts tested here, and the findings concern what a press release chose to include and omit, not any individual's honesty. Checked directly against the gov.uk press release, the 92-page decision document and STV News's report of the Court of Session judgment, all fetched 25 October 2026.
Sources
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, HM Treasury, Scotland Office and the North Sea Transition Authority, "Jackdaw gas field gets green light" (21 October 2026, updated 23 October 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jackdaw-gas-field-gets-green-light
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, "Jackdaw Field Development: Regulation 14 decision document" (published 21 October 2026). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ad77f4e13c9ff4fd08ed632/20261014_Jackdaw_decision_doc.pdf
- STV News, "Court quashes multi-billion-pound Rosebank and Jackdaw oil field approvals" (30 January 2025). https://news.stv.tv/politics/court-quashes-multi-billion-pound-rosebank-and-jackdaw-oil-field-approvals