Chamber and committees

Will the member give way?

I could not agree more with Mr Ewing. The sad fact is that not only is Norway producing more, it is actually selling to us. Norway is producing oil and gas from the basin where we are choosing to leave them in the ground.

I also get angry with the Scottish National Party. If we have a presumption against new oil and gas, this is where it leads us. We cannot say that we do not want home-grown oil and gas and then shed crocodile tears when no new oil and gas means that jobs are lost, infrastructure is no longer needed and the only transition that people face is moving from Scotland to Stavanger.

Our motion puts it plainly: Scotland’s Government has adopted a

“presumption against new oil and gas exploration and production”—

an approach that is not only economically reckless but blatantly disconnected from Scotland’s energy reality. The SNP says that it is about climate leadership, but its own documents admit that we will need oil and gas for some time as part of the journey to a transition. The truth is unavoidable. If we turn off domestic supply, Scotland will not consume less oil and gas—we will simply import more foreign energy at higher carbon intensity, supporting jobs abroad.

The SNP’s position is not climate leadership but climate hypocrisy. Meanwhile, communities in the north-east—my constituents—are paying the price. The SNP supports a just transition, but it cannot explain why the north-east has lost three oil and gas jobs for every one clean energy job that has been created over the past decade. It cannot explain why more than 13,000 Scottish oil and gas jobs have been lost in a single year, with employment now almost half of what it was in 2013. It is time to call this out for what it is—an ideological campaign against a sector that Scotland still relies on.

What about the SNP’s energy strategy and just transition plan? It will soon be three years since it produced the draft. Where is it? Is the SNP Government incompetent or untruthful?

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making on reducing audiology waiting lists at NHS Grampian. (S6O-05204)

Today is a really dark day for the oil and gas industry and for the north-east of Scotland. We have seen headline after headline in The Press and Journal this week on the damage that the energy profits levy is having. I assure Labour Party MSPs that that was not scaremongering—we must all brace ourselves for what is coming next.

My party has called it an “oil and gas emergency”, and that is by no means overdramatic. It is an emergency, and we need to brace ourselves for a tsunami of job losses across the sector after today’s budget.

As the Office for Budget Responsibility revealed earlier, the EPL will remain, but the intake from it is tailing off dramatically as it kills off the industry and thousands of jobs with it. It is completely wrong.

I have met many energy companies over the past few weeks—I guess that the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy has done so as well, but no one from the Labour Party ever seems to attend the meetings that are called. The energy companies tell me time and again how bad things are, that they are not replacing people who leave, their order book is reducing, they are focusing on work overseas, they are moving their skills overseas and they are downsizing and getting rid of offices. The sad and frustrating part is that that decline is self-inflicted and driven by political policy. It is a classic case of shooting ourselves in the foot.

It is not just the north-east that is suffering—the news from Grangemouth and Mossmorran is a result of the North Sea contracting, with less product flowing to them. I was at a meeting last night about Mossmorran, and I was told that the reasons for closure are Government policies. The plant pays carbon tax of £20 million per year, with that amount due to double. It has high energy costs and there is less ethane available because of the North Sea shutdown. We were told that the ethylene that Mossmorran produces is 50 per cent more expensive than that of its competitors abroad. How can the plant compete in that market?

When global companies are choosing to walk away from Scottish energy and manufacturing because policy is hostile and uncertain, that is not a transition—it is economic vandalism. We should brace ourselves for more, because as Governments force the decline of home-grown hydrocarbons, more and more large pieces of infrastructure will become unviable. The gas plants, the pipelines and the terminals are all at risk.

The environmental compatibility report for Rosebank has been available for some weeks now. Does the SNP Government back Rosebank—yes or no?

It is not about political theatre; it is about—

I can tell from my inbox that it is well above the average. If the Scottish Government committed to delivering a community audiology service, high street audiologists would be able to deliver the service in as little as 18 weeks and clear more than 70,000 people from audiology waiting lists. What is preventing the minister from scoring an easy win and delivering on her party’s manifesto commitment to put community audiology services on par with the successful community eye care model?

Does the SNP no longer have any idea what should be in the plan, or does it fear the backlash when people realise what is in it? I agree with Mr Carson—I think that it is both.

The SNP does not want to be honest with offshore workers on its position on oil and gas. It does not want to be honest with our rural communities about the impact that the scale of expensive renewables will have on our countryside, whether that is monster pylons, battery storage or substations. It does not want to be honest with our fishermen about the impact that offshore wind will have on fishing grounds, nor does it want to be honest with households about the true cost of renewables and their impact on bills. Instead of the cabinet secretary jetting off around the world, she should meet communities and hear people’s concerns.

Scotland is blessed with one of the most highly regulated, low-carbon oil and gas basins in the world. The North Sea is not the problem; it is part of the solution. The public agree: 84 per cent of Scots support continuing domestic oil and gas production during the transition. Therefore, the Parliament must send a clear message today: that it does not support the SNP’s presumption against new oil and gas, it does not support Labour’s punitive energy profits levy and it stands with Scotland’s workers, Scotland’s energy security and Scotland’s economy.

This country needs a transition that is built on realism, not ideology. The SNP refuses to give clear support to the industry and Labour says that our future is not in oil and gas. However, we say plainly that Scotland needs its domestic oil and gas industry, it needs energy security and it needs a fair and affordable path to net zero. That begins with backing our own workers, our own resources and our own future. I urge colleagues across the chamber to back my motion.

I move,

That the Parliament regrets the Scottish Government’s ideological drive to end North Sea oil and gas exploration and production; notes the negative impact on oil and gas jobs, energy security, the economy and the environment of the Scottish Government’s failure to pursue an informed, data-led, evidence-based North Sea policy; demands the immediate and unequivocal reversal of the Scottish Government’s presumption against new oil and gas exploration and production, and calls on the UK Government to immediately abolish the Energy Profits Levy.

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the member take an intervention?