Meeting of the Parliament 26 November 2025
The green voting sheet for this afternoon’s debate was not difficult to fill out. Very obviously, we will oppose the motion. The Scottish Conservatives are here to serve the interests of the profit-hungry, climate-wrecking, lethal fossil fuel industry, and they make no attempt to hide it. Equally obviously, we will oppose the SNP’s demands for a massive tax cut for the same lethal fossil fuel industry. Just as obviously, we will oppose Labour’s amendment, which comes on the day of Labour’s capitulation to the fossil fuel industry and its backtracking on its already weak position on new oil and gas.
Sarah Boyack started off by blaming others for party political posturing and then indulged in exactly the same thing. None of the other parties has put the blame where it belongs, which is fairly and squarely on the fossil fuel industry itself—those who have extracted not only vast amounts of oil and gas, which they have pumped into the atmosphere, but vast amounts of profit, and who are now happy to put their workforce on the economic scrap heap.
I thank the organisation Uplift for the briefing that it circulated. It rightly points out that North Sea developments are made economically viable only
“with massive state support”
and that the industry’s claim that half of the UK’s oil and gas demands could be met from the North Sea is misleading. The industry admits that it is
“‘considered to be beyond realistic assumptions’”
and would require
“massive tax breaks.”
The industry has a long history of choosing to prioritise its shareholders over its workforce and, certainly, of prioritising profit over planet.