Labour's eco-millionaire donor Dale Vince has told Andy Burnham that approving new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea can 'save money for the country'.

The green energy tycoon revealed he has dropped his opposition to the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields and said there is 'a way that we can make sense of this North Sea puzzle'.

Explaining his surprise U-turn, Mr Vince said that if new drilling was combined with 'price control' on wholesale energy then this would help bring bills down.

Proposals for the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields are now in the hands of ministers following the closure of consultations on the two projects.

Mr Burnham is under increasing pressure – including from US President Donald Trump – to ease Labour's ban on new drilling and give the go-ahead to both fields.

Rosebank is the UK's largest remaining untapped oil field and lies about 80 miles west of Shetland.

Meanwhile there have been warnings of fuel shortages this winter without the approval of the Jackdaw gas field, which is 150 miles east of Aberdeen.

Mr Vince, who has donated more than £6million to Labour through his Ecotricity firm, once said it would be a 'betrayal of millions of us' to approve the two sites.

But, speaking to BBC Newsnight on Monday, the 64-year-old – who previously advised Mr Burnham when he was Greater Manchester mayor – explained why he had now reversed his position.

'I have a different position perhaps than the one you expect me to have,' Mr Vince said.

'There's a way that we can make sense of this North Sea puzzle. We can actually bring our bills down, which we can't at the moment unless we do this one thing, which is price control the North Sea.

'At the moment, the global market sets the price, and it doesn't matter how much we make here, we pay the global price.

'If we price control it like we have our retail energy sector, we can actually save money and that makes more sense of the North Sea and it would make more sense of Jackdaw and Rosebank.'

He added: 'If we price control wholesale energy across the board, like we have retail, we have to do this to reform our energy system.

'If we do that, we pave the way to make sense of Rosebank and Jackdaw new drilling. Sites that are already licensed, because we can save money.

'And then this secondary argument that's being made for new drilling, that if we're gonna use fossil fuels, we might as well make them here as to bring them from abroad.

'That makes more sense and comes to the fore. We will use fossil fuels for a number of years to come, and it makes sense to make them, if we can also save money here and create some jobs. I'm up for it.'

Mr Vince, who was among those to welcome Mr Burnham to Downing Street last month, said he was 'trying to persuade' the PM to take up his ideas for reform of the energy market and so 'change the outlook for the North Sea'.

But he also urged Mr Burnham not to 'row back' on Labour's commitments to Net Zero. 

He added: 'If we do price control of the North Sea, existing, we can save £10billion a year. And by the way, we've got a £50billion bill coming for decommissioning.

'No government has taken responsibility for that. We can take some of that £10billion saving and stick it into a fund for the next ten years and be ready when the time comes.

'And if Rosebank and Jackdaw are going to go ahead, they will actually save money for the country.

'That makes sense to me, in which case, in these couple of decades as we transition to Net Zero.

'Most important thing though, we must not row back on our commitments to Net Zero. Provided we don't, then we will use fossil fuels for some years to come.

'And it will make sense to make them here if we can make them cheaper here than the global market price. The only way we can do that is to price fix the North Sea.'

Labour's ban on new North Sea oil and gas licences – which was promised in the party's general election manifesto – was imposed by Ed Miliband when he was energy secretary.

But Mr Burnham, who promoted Mr Miliband to Foreign Secretary when he became PM, has said he will be 'pragmatic' about the future of drilling in the North Sea.

He could claim not to be breaking Labour's manifesto pledge by approving Rosebank and Jackdaw, where licences were previously granted by the Tory government, while still not issuing any new licences.

Initial approval of both sites was given by the Conservative administration but was later withdrawn when a court ruled consent was granted unlawfully following a case brought by environmental campaigners.