US energy secretary Chris Wright has warned that Britain’s green policies have resulted in “higher prices and fewer jobs” for its economy, as the UK government finalises its industrial strategy and continues to move away from oil and gas.

Addressing a crowd of oil and gas executives at S&P Global’s CERAWeek conference in Houston on Monday, Wright said: “We have outsourced far too much manufacturing, and our allies in Europe have gone much further in this destructive direction. I find it sad and a bit ironic that the once mighty steel and petrochemical industries of the United Kingdom have been displaced to Asia, where the same products will be produced with higher greenhouse gas emissions, then loaded on a diesel powered ship back to the United Kingdom.”

“The net result is higher prices and fewer jobs for UK citizens, higher global greenhouse gas emissions, and all of this is termed a climate policy?”