Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh isolated as PM and Chancellor row back from Net Zero

Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh was looking increasingly isolated in Cabinet last night as Labour sources indicated the Government was breaking with Net Zero ideology in order to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Ms Fahnbulleh was at the centre of a row over the future of the North Sea's Rosebank oil field after The Mail on Sunday revealed last weekend that both the Prime Minister and Chancellor wanted to give the green light to drilling for its 500million barrels of oil.

In response, Ms Fahnbulleh – a protege of climate zealot Ed Miliband , who has previously indicated her opposition to the project on environmental grounds – insisted she would have the final say. But a Labour source said last night: 'The decision to approve Rosebank will be taken across Government and just rubber-stamped by Miatta.' As part of the shift in emphasis from Net Zero to cost of living , ministers will increasingly refer to 'cheap energy' rather than 'clean energy'.

Senior Government officials fear that if Donald Trump suffers heavy losses in this week's US mid-term elections, he will react by 'distraction bombing' Iran , thus pushing energy prices even higher. A source said: 'A lame duck Donald promises to be challenging, so the priority is "power sovereignty" and "cheap energy". We obviously want clean energy, but when it is also cheap energy.' The source added: 'Even Ed [Miliband] is starting to see the logic of this.'

Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh arrives for a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street on October 20 Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander, Ms Fahnbulleh and Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey during a visit to Shell UK's St Fergus Gas Terminal in Aberdeenshire After the MoS story about the Rosebank oil field, Ms Fahnbulleh's parliamentary aides circulated a memo to MPs insisting she would have the final say on the project. The memo said: 'No decision has been made.

The Energy Secretary is the only decision maker and will consider all relevant factors as part of the quasi-judicial process. No other Cabinet member or minister has any role in this decision and does not see the advice on it.' However, the assertion was at odds with the fact that Wednesday's Budget statement included the projected tax receipts from Rosebank as part of its calculations. In a further sign of the new emphasis, Chancellor John Healey wrote an article for The Times yesterday in which he said that ministers would veto new clean energy projects if they added to the bill which taxpayers face when the Government pays the operators of wind turbines to turn them off when there is not enough cabling capacity to transmit their power.

Mr Healey's intervention came as figures show that relying on wind power made September the most expensive month on record, with consumers liable for a staggering £505million surcharge to keep the system running. Ministers are increasingly alarmed by the cost of so-called 'wasted wind', caused by building additional windfarms before Britain's electricity grid had been updated to cope. The National Energy System Operator (NESO) has already admitted that the cost of disconnecting wind turbines will reach £9billion by 2029, adding up to £100 to domestic energy bills.

On Tuesday alone, almost £7million was paid to wind farm owners to switch off the turbines, according to a tracker run by Octopus Energy, and more than £40million was paid to gas plant owners to generate the emergency shortfall in electricity. Independent consultant Kathryn Porter said: 'We need to ditch the policy that lets windfarms connect years before the grid is ready. If wind needs to be turned off, NESO should do it a day earlier so avoiding many of the expensive last-minute actions.'

But last night, an Energy department spokesperson said: 'This is a quasi-judicial process. The Energy Secretary is the only decision maker, no other Minister has any role in this decision.'