John Swinney under pressure to back new North Sea drilling after SNP votes to scrap Sturgeon policy

John Swinney is under mounting pressure to confirm a U-turn on the North Sea after his party’s conference backed domestic oil and gas over foreign imports. On Friday, SNP delegates moved to formally scrap the previous ‘presumption against’ new drilling introduced by Nicola Sturgeon in a heated debate at its conference in Aberdeen . The First Minister is now under pressure from the Tories and even his own energy minister to formally back new oil and gas licences when a long-delayed Scottish Government energy strategy is finally published. Senior party figures made clear that the previous position introduced by Ms Sturgeon had caused damage to the party, including in the recent Aberdeen South by-election won by the Conservatives , and that voters felt they were no longer on their side. It is a U-turn on the SNP’s previous policy and the first time it has explicitly backed greater use of domestic drilling since Ms Sturgeon introduced the presumption against new fields in a draft energy strategy published in 2023. But the debate exposed deep splits within the SNP on the issue, with some activists claiming the party was ‘in the pocket of oil and gas lobbyists’ and was seeking to ‘line the pockets’ of energy executives. The SNP are split on the issue of North Sea oil and gas fields being reopened An amendment from trade union activists within the party also demanded that the UK Government increases the windfall tax on oil and gas profits but this was rejected by delegates in a vote. During the debate, Richard Thomson, the former MP who lost the Aberdeen South by-election which had been billed by the Tories as a referendum on oil and gas, said: ‘I’m not going to say we should have won it, but what I am going to say is that our chances of winning it would have been greatly improved had it been for the absence of two words in particular which the Tory campaign hung around our neck like an albatross, and those words were “presumption against”. ‘Those words, presumption against, first appeared in a draft energy strategy produced in different times by the Scottish Government over three and a half years ago and, even though that strategy has never been formally adopted, those words have continued to indicate to the industry and to those that work in it that the SNP - the party who was historically most closely associated with wishing success of that industry in Scotland – were no longer on their side.’ He said the Tories were able to portray themselves as the ‘saviours of that industry’ and the SNP as the opposite of that, and said: ‘That is not a position that we should wish ourselves to be in any longer. 'That’s why we need to pass a motion that puts to bed any suggestion that this party or our party in government supports a presumption against.’ The motion, proposed by Energy Minister Stephen Gethins, Aberdeen Central MSP Jack Middleton and Arbroath and Broughty Ferry MP Lara Bird, states that ‘in the interests of energy security, protecting Scottish jobs, and securing funding to accelerate growth in renewables, the utilisation of domestic production, reviewed by climate compatibility assessments, is clearly preferable to importation’. It also says that the SNP ‘should champion policies that safeguard Scottish jobs and skills, reduce reliance on imported fuels and use the economic benefits of Scotland’s remaining oil and gas resources to help fund the transition to a net zero economy’. Until now, Mr Swinney has refused to explicitly back new oil and gas licences and has refused to say if he supports the crucial Rosebank and Jackdaw developments. Despite the conference vote, the Mail understands Mr Swinney will not explicitly back new drilling when he gives his keynote address on Saturday. Asked by the Mail last night if the motion will be reflected in Scottish Government policy and if the energy strategy will set out support for new drilling, Mr Gethins said: ‘Since something has been passed by conference, I very much hope that will now be reflected in Scottish Government policy because conference is still a major creative of SNP policy, which will be reflected by Government. ‘On the energy strategy, of course as you would expect I will announce that to parliament otherwise I will be getting myself into bother with the Presiding Officer.’ He said that it will be difficult to publish an energy strategy before a UK-wide Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, which is a 25-year blueprint for the sector, is published, ‘otherwise it will be out of date very rapidly’. Douglas Lumsden, Conservative MP for Aberdeen South, said: ‘Backing our own resources in the North Sea over imports is common sense, but it’s taken years for SNP conference to catch-up. ‘Their long-standing presumption against new oil and gas projects has been devastating for the sector and put thousands of workers on the scrapheap. ‘Voters in Aberdeen South saw right through John Swinney being two-faced on oil and gas and knew they had abandoned the industry for far too long, which is why they put their faith in myself and the Scottish Conservatives to stand up for their jobs. ‘Swinney must now finally get off the fence and give his backing to Jackdaw and Rosebank and apologise for overseeing a disgraceful decline in Aberdeen due to his party’s failure to support the oil and gas industry.’ During a Holyrood magazine fringe event at the SNP conference following the vote, one activist asked: ‘What happened to the party that declared a climate emergency? 'This panel makes it seem like it is now in the pocket of oil and gas lobbyists, with false promises.’ Another asked if domestic drilling would affect people’s bills ‘or will it just line the pockets of oil execs’, while another said North Sea oil and gas is a declining resource and ‘we need to move away no matter what happens’. They then described the party’s approach as ‘rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic’. David Whitehouse, chief executive of Offshore Energies UK, said: ‘We’ve got a narrative almost that we’ve had that oil and gas is bad, renewables is good. Stop that. It’s nonsense. 'We are all in this together and I represent loads of people who are good one day and bad the next because of the job they are doing. Ridiculous. So stop that.’ Asked if Ms Sturgeon took any blame for that given her opposition to Rosebank and Jackdaw, Mr Gethins said: ‘To be fair to Nicola, I don’t think she ever demonised individuals working in a sector, I’m not sure that kind of language is entirely helpful.’