Week beginning 19th October 2026
Welcome to Last Week.
Much of Monday and Tuesday was spent on the Northern Ireland Troubles bill. This is obviously important, however I don't think I am knowledgeable enough about it to adequately cover it.
Wednesday 21st October 2026
The government announced that they will be allowing drilling in the Jackdaw gas field. The government was criticised by the Speaker for their approach to the announcement, with it leaking to the press the day before and the Energy Secretary announcing it in Aberdeen rather than in parliament.
The Jackdaw gas field will produce gas that will create 35 million tonnes of CO₂e when burnt, equivalent to nearly a years worth of emissions from UK electricity supply. The government has said that the field will generate few jobs and won't impact energy prices.
The government has also allowed any new drilling that if it is near existing oil or gas fields (called tie-backs). This could possibly lead to another 19 million tonnes CO₂e emitted.
The government said in their speech that they expect the country to rely on oil and gas for "decades". On the same day the UN environmental programme issued a report that says that even in a best-case scenario, the world warm by more than the 1.5°C target set in the Paris agreement. If current policies continue worldwide, it says that there could be warming of 2.8°C within this century.
After a historically hot summer, the Burnham has warned that we are entering a "winter of greater flooding" - the likelihood of both drought and flooding has been increased by carbon emissions.
The government has promised that a new £2 billion fund will be used to invest clean energy technologies, however this fund is not dependent on the approval of the gas field - unlike Norway, the oil and gas sector in the UK is privately owned and the entire North sea oil and gas sector is expected to provide just £100 million (£0.1 billion) per year in tax over the next few years.
A bill was read for increasing financial transparency and limiting expenditure of multi-academy trusts. Multi-academy trusts run multiple academy schools and provide centralised services such as admin and IT. Gillotts in Henley has been run by the River Learning Trust since last year.
The bill comes after an multi-academy trust in the West Midlands had a £8 million deficit and was asking schools for up to 25% of their budget for the trust. Last year the River Learning Trust took 4.9% from its secondary schools for central running costs, just £125,000 from Gillotts.
Thursday 22nd October 2026
Parliament marked black history month.
There was a debate on deploying RAF aircraft to defend Saudi Arabia and provide refuelling support for their strikes in Yemen. Saudi Arabia opposes the Houthi movement, who govern much of Yemen.
The Houthi's are a nationalist, populist and antisemitic fundamentalist Muslim movement. They have been accused of discriminating against Sunni Muslim and Jewish people in Yemen and using child soldiers. They have also attacked civilian areas within the country, amongst other human rights abuses. They have targeted civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, particularly airports and oil and energy infrastructure as well as attacked Saudi ships in the Red Sea.
However, Saudi Arabia, which is a monarchy, has also struck civilian infrastructure including hospitals (including those run by Médecins Sans Frontières), a prison, funerals and internet infrastructure in Yemen and killed what appear to be surrendered soldiers. Their ongoing naval blockade since 2015 has contributed to the famine in Yemen which has killed over a hundred thousand people.
Yemen also has substantial oil and gas deposits that Saudi Arabia, which has an economy reliant on oil and gas, might be interested in an allied government having control over.
Parliament did not sit on Friday.
Endnote
Thank you for reading Last Week. This one was a bit shorter, mostly because I didn't have time to anything longer. It was also unexpectedly oil and gas themed.
Until next week.
-- Tom Brandis
Link to share this page: https://last-week.tombrandis.uk/week/2026-10-19/
If you spot a mistake or want to tell me anything email me at tom@tombrandis.uk.
For further infomation see Hansard (the official parliament report).
To contact Freddie van Mierlo email freddie.vanmierlo.mp@parliament.uk. You can follow him on Bluesky.
Read previous weeks in the archive. To subscribe in a feed reader use the RSS feed.