Andrew Bowie has backed North Sea oil and gas as “what’s best for the country” ahead of a speech in Aberdeen today.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will use a speech at Offshore Europe to set out her plans for a UK-wide policy of maximum extraction.
Ms Badenoch will say the next Conservative government would change mandates set on the renamed North Sea Authority and give it one instruction — to “maximise the extraction of our oil and gas”.
Shadow secretary of state for Scotland Andrew Bowie told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme that the current Labour government is making the North Sea “un-investable”.
The MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine spoke following Hunting’s decision to shed 40 jobs in Westhill and consolidate its base in Aberdeen.
Mr Bowie said:
“It’s certainly what’s best for the country. I think when you look at the state of the industry right now, an industry that survives and overcomes many adversities over the past few decades, facing a significant downturn as a direct result of government policy, a windfall tax of 78%, a ban on all exploration and drilling licenses.
“I think it’s really important that we get this industry, this world-leading industry, back to a position where international boardrooms have confidence that the North Sea is an investable basin, where we can protect tens of thousands of jobs in and around Aberdeen, but actually across Scotland and the UK, and ensure that we protect our energy security by getting more of the oil and gas that we will need for the next few decades, at least out of our own basin.”
Asked about net zero commitments made by former prime ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson, he said:
“Both of them acknowledged that we were going to need oil and gas for a significant number of years to come.
“And indeed, none of them went as far as the current government is going in terms of stopping that investment, making the UK uninvestable when it comes to new technologies delivering for our energy security moving forward, particularly delivering that oil and gas that we’re going to need.
“And so I think that you cannot compare the two situations. We were also in a situation in 2019 and 2021 where we hadn’t seen the war in Ukraine, we hadn’t seen energy prices spike, we hadn’t seen a threat to our energy security…
“We need to be producing more of our own energy, and that means maximising what we have. Of course, it means investing in new technologies, offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, new nuclear, which I would love to see Scotland get a part of in this world nuclear revolution that we are seeing, sadly prevented from doing so by the current SNP government.
“But it means also the oil and gas…
“So let’s get back to business. Let’s remove all these ridiculous mandates and duties. Let’s remove the ban on licenses. Let’s remove the Energy Profits Levy and let’s get back to business, and let’s introduce more of our energy here in the UK, employing British workers and ensuring the economic future of Aberdeen in the North East of Scotland.”
Mr Bowie defended the UK’s record on reducing carbon emissions faster than other leading countries in the west.
He said:
“Of course we want to create a sustainable future. We want to leave the world in a better place than in which we inherited it.
“But there’s no point in doing that if we make tens of thousands of people unemployed, undermine our economy and indeed leave ourselves more open to shocks on the energy market by not producing more of the energy that we need at home.
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“The United Kingdom has halved our emissions since 1992, we’ve halved emissions and cut emissions faster than any other country in the G7. We’ve built the first, second, third, and fourth largest offshore windfarms in the world.
“Under a Conservative government, whilst growing the economy and supporting our oil and gas industry, we need to rebalance what we’re doing. We need to rethink given the situation that we find ourselves in.
“Norway, for example, is proceeding to reduce its emissions whilst maximising economic recovery from the North Sea. The two are not in opposition. We need to do both, but we need to let the North Sea get on and generate the oil and gas that we will need for many generations to come so that we can ensure our economic and, indeed, energy security future.”
