Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 15 December 2021
I am disappointed that the minister has completely failed to get my point. Nobody is arguing for unlimited oil and gas—the minister has clearly failed to listen, just as he failed to listen to the oil and gas industry and to most of the environmental industry when they were telling him something different.
However, the responsibility does not fall on the SNP’s subsidiary alone, for the latest developments were set off by Nicola Sturgeon’s abject failure to back our oil and gas industry. When it suited her, it was Scotland’s oil and the foundation for her future country.
Members may remember that, right at the start of the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—Michael Matheson was quoted as saying that an independent Scotland would continue drilling for oil and gas. Yet, as soon as the price fell and Nicola Sturgeon realised that supporting the industry might impact on her future job prospects, she threw her cabinet secretary under the bus and U-turned with deeply damaging comments about Scotland’s oil and gas. Just last week, when she was pressed by Douglas Ross, she failed to condemn the shameful, appalling comments of her ministerial colleague Patrick Harvie.
What a contrast that is with the leadership that has been shown in Norway. As Deirdre Michie of Oil & Gas UK said:
“Look at the statements of support from their Prime Minister. That gives people and companies confidence that that’s an area where you can go and invest, where you want to do your oil and gas operations, where the people and the skills will then underpin the energy transition.”
The last point is key—what will drive net zero is oil and gas companies that have the skills, the money and the business imperative to innovate, invent and transition. For example, BP is using its workforce to partner with Aberdeen City Council in the hydrogen hub; Equinor and Cadent are—as was reported today—announcing plans for a hydrogen town; and SGN is envisaging a pathway to 100 per cent hydrogen for Scotland’s gas networks, on which it has worked with oil and gas stalwart the Wood Group.
The conclusion is clear: we must “get real” about continuing demand, and how irresponsible and short-sighted it would be to satisfy that demand through imports. We must “get real” about recognising that, unless the Scottish Government starts to support our oil and gas industry and genuinely steps up to a fair and managed transition, new production will not go ahead, we will import from abroad and up to 100,000 workers in the oil and gas industry and associated industries will be thrown under the bus in favour of virtue signalling.
I urge Parliament to vote for the Conservative motion today; the SNP to take its spokeswoman’s advice to “get real”; Parliament to back our oil and gas industry; and all of us to consign the student politics of the Greens back to the stone age where they belong.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises that prematurely ending the oil and gas industry would decimate the economy of the north east of Scotland, and believes that it is irresponsible and counter to Scotland’s net zero ambitions to undermine the future of the industry and the jobs of tens of thousands of north east workers that rely on it.
15:28