TORY plans to get Britain “drilling again” could “hand millions back to oil and gas giants” while families continue struggling to afford high energy bills, campaigners warned today.

This followed Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch launching a campaign on oil and gas, claiming that Britain faces a “growing energy emergency.”

She called for an immediate end to the moratorium on new drilling licences and demanded that Chancellor Rachel Reeves scrap the Energy Profits Levy, known as the windfall tax, in her forthcoming Budget.

The tax, raised to 38 per cent last year, targets profits from oil and gas producers.

End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said: “The real emergency is that by 2027, the UK won’t even produce enough gas to heat our homes and only 14 per cent of all the gas that ever existed in the North Sea is left.

“Calling for more drilling when the North Sea is running out of gas is not a plan, it’s political theatre.

“Scrapping the Energy Profits Levy when between a quarter and a third of the average energy bill is taken in profit for different parts of the energy industry would simply hand millions back to oil and gas giants while families struggle with high bills.”

“Real energy security comes from backing British renewables, reforming electricity pricing and upgrading homes, not clinging to declining fossil fuels and asking the public to subsidise record industry profits.”

Uplift executive director Tessa Khan described Ms Badenoch’s comments as “desperate,” saying: “The idea that, after 50 years of drilling, the ageing North Sea [fields] can provide us with reliable and crucially affordable energy supply is for the birds.

“The UK has burned most of its gas — that’s a matter of geology, not policy — and what oil there is is owned by oil and gas firms who then export most of it.

“New drilling won’t take a penny off our bills and will do next to nothing to boost UK supply.”

Ms Khan said Ms Badenoch’s attempt to “position her party as the North Sea’s saviour is frankly outrageous,” given the Conservatives’ failure to protect jobs in the sector.

Rosie Hampton of Friends of the Earth Scotland said: “This is a pathetic and desperate attempt to appeal to [US President Donald] Trump and oil industry lobbyists, because nobody else considers it a credible plan.

“The ‘drill, baby, drill’ approach … will kill people by worsening climate breakdown.”