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Conservative Chris Skidmore will quit as an MP next week over the government’s energy plans, triggering a by-election to replace him.
The former minister said he could not continue as a Tory MP ahead of a vote on a bill on Monday to guarantee annual oil and gas licensing rounds.
The Kingswood MP added his “personal decision” meant his constituents deserved the chance to elect a new MP.
He had already announced plans to leave Parliament at the next election.
Mr Skidmore signed the UK’s 2050 net zero commitment into law as an energy minister under Theresa May.
The government announced the bill in November, in a bid to draw a dividing line with Labour, which has said it will not issue new licences if it wins power.
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Skidmore said the draft lawwould “in effect allow more frequent new oil and gas licences” to be issued in the North Sea.
He said he could not support the legislation in next week’s vote, adding: “The future will judge harshly those that do.”
It “achieves nothing apart from to send a global signal that the UK is rowing ever further back from its climate commitments,” he added.
“We can not expect other countries to phase out their fossil fuels when at the same time we continue to issue new licences or to open new oil fields.
“It is a tragedy that the UK has been allowed to lose its climate leadership, at a time when our businesses, industries, universities and civil society organisations are providing first-class leadership and expertise to so many across the world”.
Labour’s shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband welcomed Mr Skidmore’s decision to quit, saying he was “standing up to this desperate Conservative government”.
His Kingswood seat near Bristol has a Conservative majority of 11,000, but was previously held by Labour from 1992 to 2010.
The by-election will present another headache for Prime Minster Rishi Sunak, who already faces a by-election in Wellingborough soon, after suspended Tory MP Peter Bone was ousted by local voters following a recall petition.