Donald Trump's ambassador to Britain has said the UK "must use all your assets" when it comes to energy.
In an interview with The Times, billionaire banker and art collector Warren Stephens discussed the North Sea and the importance of an energy mix.
He said: “I have said to the PM, your electricity costs are four times as high as in the US. When he asked me what he needs to do to get more US investment into this country, I said, ‘Prime Minister, I wasn’t really going to go there in our first meeting, but since you asked, your energy costs are too high'.
"You still have enormous fossil fuel potential not only in the North Sea, but there are big shale fields on shore in Lincolnshire. And you buy gas from Norway and they get it from the North Sea.
"I am not against renewables, but you must use all your assets, because the 21st century is a big consumer of electricity with AI and data centres.”
The US president's top man in the UK also suggested Britain has become too focused on reaching net zero targets.
He said: "I don’t ever see a world where we are totally off fossil fuels. The US has met its Paris climate accord goals — we did it by switching from coal to natural gas.
"I don’t like these windmills - the president is right, they are unsightly and they do kill a lot of birds. We have them in our country, and I am not saying we dismantle them, but when we were in Nantucket last summer, fibreglass blades and pieces of fibreglass from windmills started washing up on the beach.”
The fallout with the changes to inheritance tax in the UK, something which has been strongly opposed by farmers, was another topic discussed during The Times interview.
Regarding farmers having to pay inheritance tax, he said: “That would be very unpopular if you had to pay inheritance tax on your land in the US. As the president said, we’ve exempted them. The French farmers are pretty cross regularly; I can see why the British are now.”
Read the full interview on The Times website.