Academic axed from Labour conference panel for criticising energy policy

"A prominent sustainability professor had events cancelled at Labour and Conservative conferences after hosts of a panel he was on said they did not want his views on oil and gas aired in front of MPs. Prof Matthew Agarwala spoke on the fringe at Lib Dem conference for the panel organised by Total Politics but was then pulled from similar panels at subsequent Labour and Conservative conferences."

"But point out that North Sea oil doesn't cut UK energy bills, and suddenly you're censored, he said. Agarwala, the Bennett professor of sustainable finance at the University of Sussex, said he was hardly a radical on these issues. He said he had told the panel at Liberal Democrat conference that UK fossil fuel extraction did not reduce energy prices, that net zero was not the cause of high energy prices rather they were caused by poor policy choices and failures to invest in infrastructure."

Prof Matthew Agarwala spoke on a Lib Dem fringe panel organised by Total Politics and was later removed from panels at Labour and Conservative conferences. Total Politics and the panel sponsor Offshore Energies UK told him they did not want a dissenting view on the role of North Sea oil and gas in the UK economy. Agarwala said he had argued that UK fossil fuel extraction did not reduce energy prices and that high energy costs stemmed from poor policy choices and infrastructure underinvestment, not net zero. He was told panels were meant to align messaging with OEUK priorities and push a single policy perspective to MPs.

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