The SNP has publicly moved away from its contentious “presumption against” new oil and gas projects - stating that domestic production is “clearly preferable to importation”.
The SNP has seen off an attempt by conference delegates to back ramping up taxes on the North Sea oil and gas sector - amid claims the party has now explicitly undone its controversial presumption against fossil fuel projects under Nicola Sturgeon.
SNP delegates rejected the call from trade union party members to “increase profit levies on fossil fuel extractors and on polluting industries” - after accusations the plan would allow opponents to claim the party supports the loss of jobs in the North Sea.
Richard Thompson, the SNP candidate who lost the Aberdeen South Westminster by-election over oil and gas, hit out at the party’s “presumption against” new developments costing him victory by showing the North Sea industry “that we were no longer on their side”.
SNP delegates agreed a key motion agreeing a position that “the utilisation of domestic production, reviewed by climate compatibility assessments, is clearly preferable to importation” of oil and gas.
READ MORE: North Sea boss urges SNP to give 'full-throated support' to new drilling amid conference split over energy
The motion added that “the SNP should champion policies that safeguard Scottish jobs and skills” and “use the economic benefits of Scotland’s remaining oil and gas resources to help fund the transition to a net zero economy”.
Mr Thompson said that setting out the party’s “long-overdue” position “puts to bed any suggestion that this party or any party in government supports a presumption against” new oil and gas developments being approved by Westminster.
Pointing to the SNP government’s draft proposal to support a “presumption against” new projects, Mr Thompson said: “Those words have sent a signal to the industry and to those who work in it that the SNP, the party that was historically most-closely associated with wishing the success of that industry in Scotland, that we somehow were no longer on their side.”
But Simon Barrow, the national secretary of the influential SNP Trade Union Group, told delegates that the party should back calls for fossil fuel giants to face higher levels of tax, both at Westminster and potentially at Holyrood.
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He said: “It isn’t levies on excess profits in the oil and gas industry that has cost jobs in Scotland. It’s a Westminster government not putting those resources into Scotland and particularly the North East.
“This amendment asks us to look at excess profits from companies making billions of pounds of profit at a global level and polluting industry, not with resignation but with ambition. We should be leading the debate on how these revenues can actively benefit Scotland.”
But SNP energy minister, Stephen Gethins, who put forward the pivotal motion, warned party delegates to vote against calling for ramped up taxes and levies on the oil and gas sector.
He said: “We’ve seen the damage over the last few years with the UK energy profits levy.
“I’ve read the trade union motion and I’m afraid I will vote against it. It calls upon the UK government in terms of that and I have seen the damage that has done.”
SNP MSP for Aberdeen Central, Jack Middleton, in a fiery conference speech, accused Westminster of being “the leech that grows fat feeding in Scottish resources”, claiming there has been "enormous sums of wealth grabbed from this nation”.
He claimed that the energy profits levy “costs 1,000 jobs every single month”.
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Mr Middleton hit out at his SNP colleagues supporting “not to remove the energy profits levy…but to increase it”.
He added: “I’m afraid this flaw could be used by our opponents to construe that the amenders are on the side of these (jobs) losses.”