THE North Sea sector along with the north-east of Scotland await Andy Burnham’s position on further oil and gas development. What’s been trailed underwhelms to say the least, offering no salvation to an industry in crisis and leaving a supposed Just Transition to a bright new renewables future a mirage at best — if not a cruel betrayal.

The SNP will doubtless berate whatever announcement as yet another sellout of Scotland’s oil bounty and damaging to the bright new renewables future which beckons.

However, whilst chortling at Labour with Sarwar scurrying to wrap himself in ermine, they should beware they don’t choke on their own hypocrisy over oil, as a recent by-election showed.

After all the discovery of oil was part of the DNA of the modern SNP and pivotal in its rise especially in the north-east. Equally, they still point to Norway’s sovereign wealth fund as an example of what can be done with the powers of an independent nation.

But as to whether they’re for or against further development of oil and gas it’s another matter. What’s the SNP position and that of the Scottish government?

With the latter it’s hard to pin down and with the former it seems to depend on who you speak to. Energy is reserved to Westminster and that’s often put forward as the excuse for not commenting, though it never holds them back in attacking Westminster on this or any other issue. Moreover they have a cabinet secretary with energy in his title, and they boast of other powers they’ve used to address energy for example planning powers blocking nuclear development and the calamitous fire-sale of offshore wind. So why the reticence on further development?    

They’re happy to berate the government for the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) brought in by the Tories but continued by Labour. Taxing profits, especially excessive ones, is perfectly sensible but killing the goose that lays the golden egg is quite another. The huge profits in oil and gas aren’t being made in the North Sea. All that the EPL has done is hasten withdrawal and accelerate decline.

There may well be modest tweaking by the new UK energy secretary, but much damage has been done and, in any event, there are other issues.

So the SNP and the Scottish government will tell us what they’re against, but what are they for?

Nicola Sturgeon in one of her final speeches in Holyrood called on the Scottish government to “formalise” the presumption against further development which her SNP/Green administration had brought in.

That seems to remain the case although under pressure they seem to have added some latitude, ironically akin to Labour in Westminster, by mentioning the need to add fuel security into the mix given. But it remains obscure and prevaricating at best.  

Stephen Flynn proclaimed at his election count this summer that the North Sea industry would have no better friend. He’s now in John Swinney’s Cabinet but he doesn’t seem to have changed the position for his colleague who holds the energy portfolio. Stephen Gethins, the Cabinet Secretary for Europe, External Affairs and Energy, when specifically asked equivocated — stating that “future developments must not undermine climate targets and should contribute to Scotland’s energy security mix.” Just what does that mean? Are you for or against Rosebank?

Meanwhile individual SNP MPs and MSPs go their own way. The defeated candidate in the Aberdeen South by-election, who was a former MP, was in no doubt that it was the cause of the loss. Others including other former MPs took a different position. The new SNP MSP for Aberdeen Central came out in favour of the development for Jackdaw and Rosebank. Meanwhile the SNP MP for Dundee West signed an open letter opposing it.

The climate impact of fossil fuels is undeniable. The wild fire burning in the Cairngorms was an ominous portent of the future unless we change. But “just stop oil” is totally impractical and catastrophic economically, environmentally and in fuel security terms.

Aberdeen is on its knees with oil and gas workers suffering; the environmental damage of importation through super tankers dwarfs that of home-produced resource; and as the Iran war widens and costs rise access to your own resource has never been more required.

The Just Transition is not simply about justice for workers who have been so important over past decades and whose skills are essential for the new future. It’s not “drill baby drill” but about how we get to the new world of renewables with which Scotland is blessed. Turbines require plastics and erecting and managing them on and offshore requires diesel and marine diesel. None of that can be done without oil.      

The equivocation and prevarication is seeing SNP and Labour pay an electoral price. That was shown in the recent Aberdeen South by-election when the Tories won their first parliamentary by election in Scotland for 50 years.

Kemi Badenoch was all over it, but it wasn’t support for her or Tory firepower which delivered it but contempt for the alternatives. Labour were nowhere in a city and seat which once was theirs. For sure it is a swing seat and has been held by all parties, but when the discovery of oil and gas first broke it was represented by Donald Dewar, later Scotland’s first First Minister.

Causing a by-election is always high risk but the result was nothing to do with constituents vexed by being forced to the polls so soon after the Scottish election. Instead, it was to all intents a mini referendum on the North Sea oil and gas sector.

Hypocrisy whether on the House of Lords or North Sea oil breeds contempt. Not just Labour but the SNP should heed the warning. Failing to support the development of new oil fields hands simply hands the political field over to the right and those who would burn the planet.

Kenny MacAskill was Scottish justice secretary from 2007-14, and served in the Scottish Parliament from 1999-2016 and the British Parliament from 2019-24.