‘How will you spend Scotland’s public money?’ — BBC Question Time

[0:00] With global tensions affecting energy supplies, is increasing North Sea oil and gas production the right move for the UK's energy security? [0:09] Well, according to Donald Trump, yet again today, yes it is. [0:19] But he's not our president, he's for the United States. [0:23] So, Mary, is it the right move to increase North Sea oil and gas production? [0:27] So, energy security is on all of our minds, quite rightly, as prices continue to rise. [0:33] And we're having warnings left, right and centre that that's the trajectory that we're going in, even though it feels like we've been in a trajectory of rising prices for some time now. [0:41] When it comes to licensing, new exploration, our position is and has been that, first of all, perversely, those decisions don't sit in Scotland. [0:52] So, as long as we're relying on UK ministers making that decision, for each opportunity, they should consider it on a rigorously evidence-led, case-by-case basis. [1:03] That's not what you're talking about, Parliament. [1:04] I'll just finish the answer. [1:06] Taking into account both climate compatibility, because that is a legal obligation, it's not just a moral thing, but also energy security. [1:14] And energy security is clearly a factor which is developing very rapidly just now. [1:20] But if I just can't... [1:20] But that's not what you said last year, because last year you were on record saying the decision to grant the licence to drill Rosebank, the oil field, was wrong. [1:29] And it would not contribute to energy security. [1:32] Are you now saying it might? [1:33] You changed your position. [1:34] What I'm saying to the gentleman is that energy security and climate compatibility have been the two things we have always been clear need to be taken into account. [1:41] And I accept that energy security and the picture around energy security has changed significantly. [1:48] However, if I can just add, there's other factors here that are really important. [1:50] Do you think more drilling would contribute to energy security now? [1:52] You obviously didn't think that before. [1:54] Only last year. [1:55] What I'm saying is it has to be taken into account. [1:57] And I've said that the energy security position around the world... [1:59] But if it won't make a difference, why would you take it into account? [2:01] Well, because we have to take an evidence-led position. [2:04] That's just what you said. [2:06] I'm just putting you back to yourself. [2:07] All I'm saying is that the facts of each opportunity need to be considered against climate compatibility, which remains an obligation, and energy security, which is a moving picture. [2:16] What I would like to see, however, is that I didn't have to set out the principles for the decision-making on this, and that actually those decisions were made in Scotland. [2:24] Because there's other factors here, including an energy profits levy, which is still being put into place by a UK government, which is starving the industry of the very investment that we need to transition. [2:37] So that absolutely has to go. [2:39] I recall Anas Sarwar saying that Labour were going to save Grangemouth, and yet disappeared it did. [2:46] These are broken promises and a whole series of issues where we need to return our energy wealth to Scotland. [2:51] Should there be more drilling in the North Sea? [2:55] Well, it has to be led by evidence. [2:57] It has to be led by evidence. [2:59] OK, but you must have seen a lot of the evidence. [3:01] You've been in power for nearly 20 years. [3:02] Should there be more drilling on it? [3:03] But Fiona, sorry. [3:04] I realise it's not devolved. [3:05] I get that. [3:06] But that's the exact point. [3:07] But we are in Aberdeen. [3:08] You must have some idea. [3:10] I have not seen the evidence. [3:11] I do not get to make those decisions. [3:13] I want the... [3:14] So you have no idea? [3:15] No, no, it's not that I don't have any idea. [3:18] We're in a situation. [3:19] OK. [3:19] Sorry. [3:20] What's your opinion? [3:21] Should there be more drilling or not? [3:22] Well, if it can be demonstrated that it's both climate compatible and required for energy security, [3:26] then yes, it should. [3:28] Malcolm. [3:30] OK. [3:32] Here we are in the North East, where we basically had a world-class energy industry, [3:39] which we basically shut down. [3:41] It was an act of self-harm. [3:42] Our energy prices are four times more expensive than the U.S., seven times more expensive than [3:48] China. [3:48] We're importing 70% of our North Sea from... [3:51] Oh, a gas from the North Sea from Norway, from fields over the fence from the ones that [3:56] we've shut down. [3:57] Even the Norwegian Energy Minister thinks that is daft. [4:01] In the meantime, we account for less than 1% of global emissions. [4:04] China accounts for 30% and opens a coal-fired power station one a week. [4:08] We all want to clean the cleanest possible energy system, don't we? [4:11] But we need affordable and secure energy. [4:15] 75% of our energy system is hydrocarbon. [4:17] Right now, we need to get the North gas onshore and flowing again. [4:23] And we don't need that to go on the international market. [4:26] It can come to the U.K. on a domestic market only. [4:29] Remember the U.S. 20 years ago? [4:31] How would you make that happen? [4:31] Well, 20 years ago, the U.S. was energy-dependent. [4:34] And it now is an exporter. [4:37] You do a licence arrangement with the energy companies to bring the gas onshore only for [4:44] domestic use, not for export. [4:46] Not for export. [4:47] And we get the price down. [4:48] Even if they can get a higher price abroad, you'll just make them do it somehow? [4:52] That's the cost of the licence. [4:55] That's how the licence would work. [4:57] They can make a margin on that. [4:58] They bring it in to the U.K. at an affordable price. [5:02] We then have secure energy, because right now we don't have security of supply. [5:06] And we have affordable energy. [5:07] And then we can then talk about our transition, because we can then use that as our transition [5:12] fuel. [5:13] In the same way as U.S. used shale gas, China's using coal, we can use our own North Sea gas [5:19] as a transition fuel to a future. [5:21] But let's at least please come up with affordable energy, because we're de-industrialising this [5:26] country, and that is costing a lot of jobs and a lot of livelihoods, especially here [5:30] in the North East. [5:30] I heard what you said on there about gas coming from northern Norway, Ormond Langer, which [5:44] a number of years ago actually produced and was sold to the U.K. of 30% of the U.K.'s [5:54] gas needs. [5:55] We also buy oil and import oil into the U.K. as well. [6:03] So, everyone speaks about energy. [6:07] Do they not realise just how much other properties and components are actually derived from oil? [6:18] Man at the very back. [6:20] Hi, yes. [6:21] I work in the oil and gas industry. [6:24] What I see really quite dramatically is a shift out of the North Sea for a lot of suppliers, [6:32] a lot of losses of jobs. [6:34] This is all self-inflicted, I think, and, you know, we burn gas. [6:38] What does it matter if it's from Norway or from Qatar or the U.S.? [6:46] Yeah, we still burn gas to heat our homes. [6:48] We still burn oil. [6:49] We still drive cars. [6:51] You know, what I'm disappointed at, I know it's reserved matter, but that the S&P is not [7:00] fighting our corner. [7:01] Yeah. [7:02] You've not fought our corner. [7:04] And it's very disappointing. [7:06] Yeah. [7:07] You flip-flopped and now you're this wishy-washy, you know, oh, half in, half out, right? [7:12] It's nonsense. [7:12] There's more to energy security, it's a recent thing, and there's more to climate change. [7:18] There's jobs, there's livelihoods. [7:20] There's a whole northeast economy built on this. [7:23] Okay, I'll let you come back here. [7:24] Woman in a green sweater, I think, at the back. [7:27] Yes. [7:27] Yeah, we talk about energy, but we need to distinguish between electricity and other types of energy [7:34] and oil and gas. [7:36] As long as we're still using oil and gas as a country, and we are, we shouldn't be going [7:42] to Africa, allowing drilling in Africa. [7:45] How can that be cleaner? [7:46] It's certainly not cheaper. [7:49] And it's no more environmentally friendly. [7:53] And the irony that we are not, we're taxing any organization that's going to get taxed [8:00] at almost 80% is going to go to other countries, your BPs, your shells. [8:05] Why are we allowing this to come in from Norway, the same fields? [8:10] We're not taking the tax revenue. [8:12] We're not, we're losing the jobs. [8:14] Jobs are going out of Aberdeen by the thousands at the moment. [8:17] And people are employed in Norway, and they're taking all the revenue that we could be generating [8:23] here. [8:25] Gillian, the last two speakers, have they got a point? [8:31] So I don't think that any more drilling in the North Sea is compatible, either with the [8:35] climate or actually with energy security as well. [8:38] We've seen how this conflict on that global scale has pushed up prices here, without us [8:43] having anything to do with it. [8:45] This, barrels of oil from the North Sea or from anywhere else, are traded on a global [8:50] market by these global corporations, no matter where that comes from. [8:54] But the point that two people are making is that if we're going to carry on using it [8:58] for a while, at least, shouldn't be using our own rather than importing it from elsewhere. [9:03] But there are current reserves that we're using without opening new fields that can be used [9:10] to help with that transition across. [9:13] We should have been funding this transition properly. [9:15] We should have been saving the jobs that have been lost in Aberdeen and Grangemouth, where [9:18] I'm from, decades ago. [9:21] The next best time to start that transition is right now so that we don't lose any more [9:26] of the jobs that we have here in Aberdeen, so that workers do have the time to transfer [9:31] their skills across, to learn those new skills, to make sure that we've got those good, well-paid, [9:36] unionised jobs in these communities for generations to come. [9:40] I have friends who worked at Grangemouth, then went to Moss Moran, and have lost jobs twice [9:46] because we've left it to big companies. [9:48] Both governments haven't done enough to support the workers in these industries. [9:54] We need to see that backing from government now, rather than leaving it to these big corporations [9:58] that don't actually care about the communities and will cut and run when it's convenient for [10:02] them to do so. [10:03] National security has been a really big topic, rightly, over the last number of months in [10:10] particular, and let's be really clear, energy security is national security. [10:14] I would say, as an aside, that Lord Malcolm Offord served in a government where one-third [10:19] of oil and gas jobs were lost and didn't say nothing throughout that entire period, and [10:24] similar to with Mary McAllen and the SNP government. [10:27] A commitment was made on Rosebank and Jackdaw in the previous round that we would honour [10:33] licenses. [10:34] We should commit to that promise and grant the licenses that were granted by the previous [10:39] government. [10:40] Have you said that to Ed Miliband? [10:41] Clearly he does not share your view, and that's something that Westminster decides. [10:45] As you know, it's a quasi-judicial position right now, and I'm making my view very clear. [10:51] We made a commitment that we would honour the licenses granted by the previous government. [10:55] We should honour that commitment, and that includes Jackdaw and Rosebank. [10:59] I say what I think in private and in public, as you can see from the comments I made about [11:04] Keir Starmer back in February, so I made that clear here as well. [11:08] Secondly, the transition is really important. [11:10] Is there any point in you saying that, Anas? [11:12] Well, it's a quasi- [11:13] I get all the quasi-judicial stuff, and I don't know about you guys, but in the end, [11:18] you can say this, particularly in this audience here in Aberdeen, where there are so many oil [11:22] and gas jobs, but the fact is back at Westminster, no-one is listening. [11:25] In the government, they are not listening to you. [11:26] They are listening to Ed Miliband. [11:27] Well, I think you can see there are lots of different figures in the UK government now [11:31] also agreeing that we should honour the commitment made on Rosebank and Jackdaw. [11:35] Let me make a couple of broader points. [11:38] Oil and gas has been good for Aberdeen, the North East, Scotland and the UK. [11:42] And oil and gas has got a significant role to play for decades to come. [11:46] There can be no cliff edge, and there can be no turning off the tap. [11:50] We should not have any truck by repeating the mistakes made by Thatcher back with the mining sector. [11:56] And that's why, if we are going to get the large-scale jobs, yes, we have to invest in renewables, [12:01] but we also need the supply chains here in Scotland, because that's where the large-scale jobs come from. [12:07] And third, 24% of Scotland's electricity supply comes from nuclear sources. [12:12] We should end the ideological block to clean nuclear energy in Scotland. [12:17] That would overnight help unlock tens of billions of pounds of investment into Scotland, [12:22] thousands of new jobs and greater energy security. [12:25] And the promise I make is this. [12:27] As First Minister, I will end that ideological block on day one of a Scottish Labour government. [12:32] On that point, you talked there about taxes that are undermining the industry. [12:36] Offshore Energy UK have been absolutely clear that the energy profits levy, [12:40] which your colleagues are overseeing in London, [12:43] has been going on for far too long and at far higher rates, [12:46] and it's causing about 1,000 job losses a month. [12:48] So if you're so committed to oil and gas and ask, [12:50] will you commit that the energy profits levy will be scrapped? [12:55] Because it is absolutely killing the energy, [12:58] undermining the very investment you need for a decision. [13:01] Let me come back on that. [13:02] First of all, the SNP supported the energy profits levy. [13:05] For them now to pretend they're the great opponents of it is again for the birds. [13:10] When there was windfall profits. [13:11] Secondly, everybody knows, it's no secret in this city, [13:15] that the energy profit levy was going to come to an end, [13:18] but the illegal actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump in Iran [13:23] meant energy prices went through the roof again, meaning the windfall came back. [13:28] Now to pretend that somehow somebody else's fault is wrong. [13:33] I don't want people in Scotland to suffer because of the actions of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. [13:38] That's why we need emergency action. [13:39] But when it's right that the windfalls stop, of course the windfall tax should end. [13:43] I should emphasize that Mary thinks it's okay if you're earning £33,500 to pay more tax in this country, [13:50] but you want a tax cut for those that are making record profits from energy. [13:53] Man, in the blue and white top there. [13:55] For the SNP's stance, how would you measure climate compatibility for each new drilling well? [14:03] Because you'd surely have to measure that against drilling abroad. [14:07] And I can just see it leading to legal disputes every time a company wants to invest, [14:12] which would then make them go elsewhere. [14:15] I've got two things, I won't come back to you. [14:17] Yes, you've got your hand right up there. [14:19] We're in the straight top. [14:20] We talk about the oil and gas energy being far away from that cliff edge, [14:27] but frankly the cliff edge is here. [14:29] Companies have already shut down. [14:32] People are losing their jobs daily. [14:35] Supply chain is drying up, understandably, [14:40] and whilst various political parties kick the oil and gas industry around like a football, [14:47] no decisions are being made. [14:49] And I think really the time is now. [14:52] A decision needs to be made now about progressing the two oil fields to be drilled. [14:58] First of all, John Swinney should be here to answer to the people of the north-east of Scotland [15:11] as to his opposition to oil and gas. [15:15] But I suspect he can't look the people in this area in the face. [15:19] Because what he's been doing in the last few weeks [15:21] is pretending that the SNP have somehow softened or changed their position. [15:27] The SNP, of course, used to famously shout, [15:29] it's Scotland's oil, and now they want to keep it in the ground. [15:35] And Mary McCallan appears to forget her own position. [15:39] She said, we do not agree with the UK government issuing new oil and gas licences. [15:47] That was unambiguous, that was clear. [15:49] What she said tonight wasn't, [15:51] because she's following the John Swinney playbook two weeks out from an election, [15:55] trying to dupe people in the north-east into thinking, [15:58] somehow, the SNP are on your side. [16:01] They're not. [16:02] They ideologically oppose oil and gas, as do Labour, as does Ed Miliband. [16:08] Will you support the new drilling? [16:10] Well, I've already given my position on that. [16:12] Do you know what I think is really funny? [16:14] I'll come back to you, I promise. [16:16] Why have you got such a problem with women being represented in politics? [16:20] Why can't I be here tonight? [16:21] Why do I have to explain myself why I should be here? [16:23] That's not the point at all. [16:25] John Swinney is responsible for the government. [16:29] He's responsible for these decisions. [16:31] He's been completely ambiguous about oil and gas. [16:34] Your party raised the energy profits levy. [16:37] The reason John Swinney isn't here is because he knows [16:40] that he cannot answer these questions. [16:42] What we should be doing, going back to the original question, [16:46] is given the wake-up call right now, the volatility in our world, [16:51] the fact we can't rely on allies as we once did, [16:55] makes energy security absolutely critical. [17:00] We need to drill for everything we have in the North Sea. [17:04] We need to get behind the renewables industry to allow people like this lady's husband [17:09] to get those jobs in the future industry of renewables. [17:13] And we need to back new nuclear. [17:16] Just this week there was a new nuclear plant beginning construction in Wales [17:21] with the creation of 8,000 new jobs. [17:24] But again, the boneheaded SNP are ideologically opposed to new nuclear, [17:31] just as they're opposed to extracting oil and gas while pretending that somehow there may be for it. [17:44] Well, thanks, Fiona. [17:45] Well, I hope we would all agree on this panel that the final boss of the 21st century is climate change, [17:51] and it will be for the rest of our lives. [17:53] But that said, we can't escape the reality that we still need oil and gas. [17:57] We absolutely do. [17:58] And that's a failure of successive governments in London and Westminster and in Edinburgh [18:03] to drive down demand for oil and gas. [18:06] So while we need that, we need to make an assessment, an environmental assessment. [18:11] Does it make more environmental sense to take it from our own waters [18:15] than it does to import it with the additional carbon from overseas? [18:19] Absolutely. [18:20] So what's your position? [18:21] Because looking at your manifesto, I couldn't work it out, [18:23] if you support new oil and gas lessences or not. [18:26] You're just saying we don't know enough yet. [18:27] I think it's clear. [18:28] If it makes more environmental sense to extract it from our waters [18:31] than it does to import it with an additional carbon, then we should. [18:34] But let me finish by saying this. [18:36] Alex Salmon said 20 years ago he wanted to make Scotland the renewables capital of the world, [18:42] the Saudi Arabia of the north. [18:44] But we are nowhere. [18:45] We are still paying renewables companies two billion pounds a year [18:49] not to put their wind energy into our grid because we don't have the capacity to receive it. [18:53] We are nowhere in that just transition. [18:56] And as a result, we are seeing this hesitancy in our government in Edinburgh [19:01] and Marion McAllen's government. [19:03] And that hesitancy is driving companies away from this city. [19:07] I was at university in the city. [19:09] I know the people in this town. [19:10] I know the suffering that is going on because of the hesitancy [19:13] and prevarication and the jobs that are being lost when they could be saved. [19:19] We are in this striker top then. [19:23] Isn't the long-term issue actually the fact that none of you can agree [19:27] and you always chase votes? [19:29] And in actual fact, if people sat down and took a long-term view about energy security, [19:33] we could have had nuclear power in place ten years ago [19:37] and moved forward with things. [19:39] And actually, you just kick energy around like a football depending on chasing the votes. [19:44] No. [19:45] I don't think we would be allowed to... [19:48] Roman in the green glasses. Roman in the green glasses then. [19:51] Hi. The overall question is that the root of all these problems is the reliance on oil and gas as an energy. [19:59] And as it was said, is it not now time to make that final decision to move towards cleaner energy [20:07] rather than coming to the same realisation every time there is conflict and war in the Middle East? [20:12] Oh, actually, oil is not really a super reliable supply. [20:16] This conversation happens every time there is conflict in the Middle East. [20:20] And the answer just keeps putting back to, as said, oh, I guess we'll see. [20:25] And even though, I mean, you've got people in the audience here saying it's costing jobs [20:29] and will cost yet more jobs. [20:31] But nonetheless, you think we need to start moving away and as fast as possible. [20:34] I think the solution is to start putting those transition plans in place, [20:37] to start building those skills and stop saying, oh, well, we'll see and we'll try to figure it out. [20:44] And you take people in oil and gas, you give them the new skills and give them a clear plan. [20:50] This will be the job when you move into renewables. [20:52] All right. Listen, let me come back up. [20:54] Mary, I want to come back to you because there are a couple of points here. [20:56] First of all, the man in the back, right at the very beginning, said that you're half in, half out. [20:59] On the one hand, you're saying, well, as long as it's climate compatible and energy security, [21:03] but you're not committing one way or the other. [21:05] And then the man there in the blue and white top was saying, how are we ever going to meet the climate compatibility target? [21:11] How is it ever going to be climate compatible to dig fossil fuels out of the ground? [21:16] So I think the question, if I'm remembering correctly, was how do you calculate the climate compatibility? [21:22] And I would say that it has to assess the impact of burning the hydrocarbons as they are, [21:27] but we have to compare that against the carbon impact of importing. [21:31] And doing that alongside the question of energy security and how that's being served in our country just now, [21:37] allows us to look case by case, evidence led, and decide whether something should go ahead or not. [21:44] To the man back, they're saying you're half in, half out. You're trying to kind of sit on the fence on it. [21:48] Somebody mentioned that the SNP has long supported the oil and gas industry, and that remains the case. [21:53] But supporting... You have not supported your licences, absolutely not. [21:58] Supporting the oil and gas industry in 2026, given not least the maturity of the basin and our desire to protect the communities [22:06] and the world-class expertise that's surrounding it, is about supporting it now, supporting transition, [22:13] what I like to call mind the gap, make sure that we can get our renewables to a certain extent, [22:19] that we have sufficient jobs, communities are supported, and people can transfer. [22:23] Can I just close this by saying I don't represent an area around here, I represent a former mining area. [22:29] And there are parts of my constituency that are still economically dislocated, [22:33] because the rug was pulled under their feet by Margaret Thatcher. [22:36] The SNP will never let that happen to oil and gas, but we would be in a better position to do that, [22:41] if any of us here on the panel had control over this. [22:45] The reason they're laughing is because they're losing jobs now. [22:48] There's a thousand jobs every month getting lost in the North East of Scotland. [22:51] A thousand jobs every month, and you want to talk about Margaret Thatcher? [22:54] It's the energy profits levy. It's right now. [22:57] It's the UK's energy profits levy. [22:59] Nicholas Sturgeon said no to oil and gas, and John Swerry has gone along with it. [23:04] And he's now pretending, two weeks out from an election, that he's maybe changed his mind. [23:07] It's your energy profits levy, which Labour have continued, which is losing a thousand jobs. [23:12] Mary talks about her philosophy of mine the gap. [23:14] Well, the gap is here. It's here right now. [23:16] And people are losing jobs. [23:18] I met a rig worker who was qualified for high work in the oil rigs. [23:22] He wanted to move into the turbine sector, but had to completely retrain for the health and safety certificates, [23:28] for exactly the same kind of work. [23:31] Nothing about what your government is doing is making it easy to translate. [23:35] Let's make a broader point. [23:37] Very brief. [23:39] Climate change, you mentioned a few times, and I think it's really important for us to make this point, [23:44] to the lady's point about trying to find consensus and move forward, [23:48] is I think the big risk we have right now is if we do not get this transition right, [23:53] we will lose the argument on climate change as well. [23:56] Because if communities across the country think that to meet our obligations on climate change, [24:01] that means fewer jobs, higher bills and greater energy insecurity, [24:06] we will lose the argument and we will lose the fight against climate change. [24:10] That's why we have to get the balance right. [24:14] Very briefly, both of you. Sorry, Gillian, go on. [24:17] But where we are because of significant underinvestment and inaction from successive governments, [24:22] we have waited to see just transition plans for Grangemouth, Mossmorgen, the North East. [24:27] They have never materialised. [24:29] OK. [24:30] And that's why we have left it to some of these big companies to cut and run. [24:32] We should be putting the communities that are here at the heart of that and the workers that are in this sector at the heart of that. [24:37] Just one very brief observation that in the last six weeks of the conflict in the Middle East, [24:42] interesting to note that the US domestic gas price has not moved up because they have secure supply, affordable supply. [24:50] We have got the opportunity to do that here in the UK. [24:53] We should pump our own North Sea gas and give ourselves secure and affordable energy. [24:57] We need to take your Mig Jared Powerание. [25:12] Walk in. [25:13] Enjoy the energy. [25:14] Every natural for the world in the UK… [25:16] …and they can do your energy, energy, energy packagehips, energy , energy, energy, energy, energy.