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Kemi Badenoch said Labour must ditch Ed Miliband’s “silly” green ideology and ramp up drilling in the North Sea. The Tory leader insisted opening up new oil and gas fields would help struggling Britons pay their bills.

Mrs Badenoch rammed home her message in a fiery clash with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. She hit out as Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has led to a drastic rise in oil prices across the globe.

Mrs Badenoch is set to officially launch her party’s “Get Britain Drilling” campaign during a visit to an Aberdeen oil rig on Monday, where she will call for Britain to maximise the use of its oil and gas reserves.

It is at the heart of Tory proposals for bringing down the spike in energy prices caused by the war in the Middle East

In an interview on Sunday, Kuenssberg said: “The Conservatives are saying that we should open up North Sea exploration, but how much would that actually save consumers? Because that’s what everyone’s worried about.”

Mrs Badenoch responded: “What we want to see is the licenses for Jackdaw and Rosebank lifted so that they can start drilling. There’s a pipeline ready there.

“Overall, the figures that we have, in terms of what we would get […] about £25 billion over 10 years–⁠”

Kuenssberg then cut in: “But what does that mean for consumers?”

“£2.5 billion could be spent on lowering household bills. There are various figures up to £80, this is just one thing that you could do,” Mrs Badenoch replied.

“But also, the profits and the taxes which are made from the drilling can be used to subsidise bills.

“Drilling the North Sea is something that we need to do for our energy security, financial security, as well. That’s how you get national security.”

The presenter pointed out that the Tory’s shadow energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, said the plan “wouldn’t necessarily save very much money”.

“Directly, directly,” Badenoch admitted. “But indirectly, yes, it does, because you can use the money from there to subsidise.”

She went on to claim that the North Sea oil and gas industry is “losing about 1000 jobs a month”, which she said was “very bad for Scotland in particular”.

Kuenssberg then tried to ask Mrs Badenoch again what her plan would do to lower energy bills.

The BBC presenter said: “You’re trying to make a big deal of this in political campaigning at the moment, but you’ve just said there that it might not help people directly with their bills –⁠ but you’re presenting this as a solution–⁠”

Mrs Badenoch said: “It requires the Government to make the link. The drilling isn’t going to go directly onto people’s bills, no. But if we can make sure that we stop importing them from Norway –⁠ 40% of our import are coming from Norway, who are drilling in the same basin.

The Tory leader said “we can scrap taxes on energy bills today” and drill in the North Sea, using the money from that to “replace” the income from the taxes.

She added: “I’m not saying that once you drill oil and gas in the North Sea, it’s gonna go straight onto your bills. No one has said that, but it is all related. And pretending that it is not related is very dishonest from a Government that has a terrible energy policy.”