Labour’s proposed Energy Independence Bill, announced in Wednesday’s King’s Speech, is a remarkable development. That’s not because it solves any of Britain’s mounting energy challenges, but because it seems designed to lock in permanent failure.

The Government presents the legislation as part of its mission to deliver “cheap, home-grown, secure, clean energy”. Yet the flagship measure to ban new oil and gas drilling achieves the exact opposite. Britain will still consume massive amounts of oil and gas for decades: under the Government’s own heating strategy, it will take 47 years to install heat pumps in every home.

So the real question isn’t whether we’re going to use oil and gas, but instead whether we will produce some of it ourselves or rely on imports. Labour is opting for imports. What’s more, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s policy fails on all of its supposed objectives.

It’s not “cheap” because imported hydrocarbons are more expensive than Britain’s own and more exposed to volatile international markets. It’s clearly not “home-grown” or “secure”, as it increases dependence on imports and exposure to geopolitical shocks. And it’s not “clean”, since North Sea oil and gas are relatively low-carbon compared with imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), which has higher carbon intensity due to the energy needed for liquefaction, transport and regasification.

Nor is Miliband content to implement his policy for the duration of the current parliament. He intends to make these changes irreversible, effectively salting the earth behind him. He seems determined that this will be his political legacy, regardless of the harm it causes. That matters because energy systems operate on long timescales. Once investment collapses, equipment such as rigs is redeployed elsewhere, and skilled labour leaves for more appealing overseas markets. Rebuilding the capability will be neither quick nor easy.

The North Sea is not simply a source of hydrocarbons. It’s an industrial ecosystem encompassing engineering, offshore services, subsea expertise, and highly skilled technical labour. Accelerating its decline before replacement industries exist at scale risks creating permanent economic scarring, particularly in Scotland and the North East, which is why the Scottish National Party and the unions are among the many voices opposing the policy.

Even more troubling is the proposed constitutional mechanism. The legislation is expected to operate as a framework bill, where Parliament approves broad principles while much of the substantive detail is implemented later through secondary legislation and statutory instruments. MPs are effectively asked to sign a blank cheque, allowing ministers sweeping powers without seeing the operational detail that will ultimately shape the industry.

This increasingly common approach to legislating represents a major erosion of democratic accountability. Statutory instruments receive limited scrutiny and are rarely rejected. Crucial decisions affecting investment, licensing, infrastructure and market design emerge later with minimal oversight. Britain’s energy market is already suffering from years of policy driven more by slogans and political aesthetics than engineering, economics or system resilience.

The irony is that the Government’s own rhetoric increasingly contradicts the practical implications of its policies. Ministers talk endlessly about resilience, affordability and reducing exposure to hostile foreign powers. Yet prematurely shutting down domestic energy production achieves the exact opposite. Renewables, the focus of Labour’s Clean Power Plan, only generate electricity, which accounts for less than 20% of UK energy demand, with full electrification still decades away.

At some point, reality will intrude: no modern industrial economy can run on expensive and unreliable energy. By then, Labour may already have succeeded in dismantling much of the domestic energy capability future governments — not to mention the British people — will desperately wish they still had.

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Kathryn Porter is an independent energy consultant at Watt-Logic.

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