𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, the Conservatives are clear that the oil and gas industry is part of our national security. Why should this country be importing its oil from Russia, or from Qatar when we could be extracting it at home? In an increasingly volatile world, we must secure our own energy sector. Yet Labour, and the SNP, have done the opposite. The people of Aberdeen South understood this clearly. And that is why they have elected a Conservative Member of Parliament.

If you shut down our means of producing fuel, it does not mean we need any less, we will just import more of what we need from abroad, from countries that often have lower environmental standards and higher emissions.

We cannot allow our oil and gas industry to be demonised. It is a foundational industry which supports so many other jobs in chemicals, plastics or in our refineries. These are all crucial parts of any modern economy. Labour’s disastrous ban of new oil and gas licences and huge tax increases means some companies are paying marginal tax rates of over 100% This has left the sector in crisis.

This cannot go on. We have to face up to reality. The world is getting more dangerous and other countries like the US, the Middle East and Asia have not put punishing carbon taxes on their own industry. They are not shutting down their oil and gas industries – in fact, they are doing everything they can to maximise their own energy supplies.

We have the only Government in the world doing the opposite. Under Ed Miliband we will be more reliant on Putin for oil, on Modi for jet fuel, on Xi Jinping for solar panels and on Marine le Pen for electricity imports when our wind farms stop spinning.

Under Labour, not a single exploration well was drilled in British waters last year – for the first time since 1964. And yet Norway, who share the very same basin, drilled 49 exploration wells and made 21 new discoveries last year. The consequence of this means that we are losing 1,000 jobs a month, leaving £25 billion in tax receipts in the ground, and becoming less more dependent on foreign imports.

Meanwhile the SNP have stood on the sidelines, cheering this effort along. For years they have done all they can to stifle the sector, based on misguided ideology alone.

There are not many places who are feeling the consequences of this political madness as much as Aberdeen. It was the oil and gas capital of Europe and could be again. But thanks to Ed Miliband’s hairshirt climate policy, it is a city suffering. An entire city, built over generations on drilling, production, equipment, and every associated trade cannot survive if we continue on this path.

Douglas Lumsden spent two decades working in oil and gas. He knows his city, he knows its people, and he knows what Labour’s policies mean for their jobs and livelihoods. Aberdeen South has spoken and elected him as their champion. Because it is only the Conservative Party, under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, that has a serious plan to reverse this and get Britain Drilling Again.

First, end Labour’s ban on new licences, abandon the windfall tax and scrap the net zero duties which are hammering our oil and gas sector. We must fast-track permissions for Rosebank and the Jackdaw gas fields that have shamefully been sat on Ed Miliband’s desk gathering dust.

We need to look to wider industry too. We lost a third of our refineries last year alone. We have to stop imposing crippling, escalating carbon taxes that are killing British production all so we can import more of those very same goods from China, India, the US or the Middle East.

If we want energy security and better living standards we need to repeal the Climate Change Act, double down on nuclear and have a relentless focus on making electricity cheaper. The Conservatives’ Cheap Power Plan to cut electricity bills by 20% for businesses and to save households £200 would be a start.

Aberdeen sent a message on Thursday: back British oil and gas, back British workers, back Britain’s energy security. Only the Conservatives have a plan to deliver this.