Exclusive:Gethins under pressure to banish presumption against oil and gas as SNP government poised to wait another year
The Scottish government will likely not formalise a new position on oil and gas for at least another 12 months.
SNP energy minister Stephen Gethins is under pressure after failing to confirm if new drilling will form part of his government’s energy strategy.
Despite the SNP essentially scrapping the party’s controversial presumption against oil and gas developments, it could be up to a year before the Scottish government adopts the same position in its repeatedly-delayed flagship energy strategy.
Mr Gethins has confirmed to The Scotsman that the long-delayed strategy, which will map SNP minister’s priorities and positions on energy policy, will not be published before the UK government's crucial strategic spatial energy plan (SSEP) is made public.
The final SSEP is not due until the autumn of 2027.
It is understood that First Minister John Swinney was supportive of Mr Gethins’ motion, agreed at SNP conference in Aberdeen last week, that stated domestic production was “clearly preferable to importation”.
READ MORE: North Sea chief demands action from Andy Burnham to open 'bigger pipeline' of oil and gas projects
But Mr Gethins told The Scotsman that the motion essentially scrapping the SNP’s presumption against oil and gas developments “reflects things as they are today”.
He added: “However, if I produce an energy strategy, it needs to be on time, and it's difficult for me to produce an energy strategy before the SSEP has produced.
“If I produce an energy strategy tomorrow and an SSEP is produced in two weeks’ time that energy strategy would be out of date pretty quickly.
“That’s one of the things I need first to go, because the SSEP is a long-term document and energy strategy is a long-term document as well. It would be unwise to produce an energy strategy before the SSEP.”
Asked to confirm whether the Scottish government will no longer hold a presumption against oil and gas, Mr Gethins said he could not.
He said: “I can remember the speaker of the House of Commons, giving UK government ministers a really hard time for announcing policy to the press before they've done so to Parliament, and I do not want to risk Kenneth Gibson's ire by doing the same thing.
“You'll see what was in the motion. And when it comes to the energy strategy, I'll take it forward in the appropriate way.”
In December, the National Energy System Operator (NESO), which also manages the energy grid, said the final SSEP will not be published until the autumn of 2027 - meaning the SNP government will not publish a full energy strategy and position on oil and gas in more than a decade. The last Scottish government strategy was made public in 2017.
Mr Gethins is facing pressure from Conservative shadow energy secretary, Andrew Bowie, to finalise the Scottish government’s stance on oil and gas.
He said: “Even John Swinney’s colleagues and party supporters have made it clear. They are sick of the SNP’s long-held presumption against supporting new oil and gas projects.
“Swinney has nowhere left to hide. He must finally confirm this policy has been ditched and that he backs new drilling in the North Sea.”
Mr Bowie added: “This policy, which was initiated by Nicola Sturgeon, has been nothing short of shameful. It has cost thousands of workers their jobs and been devastating for the North East’s economy.
“People living and working in the North East have seen right through John Swinney’s spin and him being two-faced on his support for the sector. That’s why they elected a new Scottish Conservative MP in Aberdeen South and sent the SNP packing.
“Swinney now must stop sitting on the fence and tell Scotland’s oil and gas workers that this policy has been ditched at long last.”
The presumption against new oil and gas developments was included in the 2023 draft strategy before being indefinitely paused.
The SSEP will chart the course of investment in Britain’s energy transition for the next 25 years, but Mr Gethins has warned that not all of the six potential pathways, drawn up by the National Energy System Operator (NESO), the publicly owned body responsible for planning and operating electricity and gas networks, will meet Scotland’s energy needs.
Mr Gethins said that a failure to back Scotland’s renewables industries would risk Europe’s wider energy security as well as the economic benefits of scaling up clean energy supply chains.
Some within the industry have warned that floating wind has not been scaled up at the pace expected with developers of the Scottish government’s flagship ScotWind projects expected to hand back more leases to Crown Estate Scotland in the coming months.
Mr Gethins said: “I've written to the UK government to say, we need to see something that unlocks the benefit for the whole of Scotland. We need to see that, and we need to see something that meets Scotland's ambition.
“That means our floating wind, offshore wind needs to be brought into account. When it comes to pan-European energy security, we’re part of the solution. I can't endorse something that doesn't recognise Scotland's full potential here.”
He added: “If we think that greater energy unity with the rest of Europe is not there in 40 or 50 years, then a lot has failed. That's the way the rest of Europe is going.
“This ambition speaks to the need, not just in the UK but more broadly in Europe as well, when energy security is a prime concern to European stakeholders in every single capital. So that has to be the scale of our ambition, because it's a scale of the opportunity that sit there.”
The minister also vented his frustration at the UK government refusing to implement "guardrails" to ensure controversial plans for £1.5bn of Chinese investment from Ming Yang could be secured when the same safeguards were implemented for Chinese investments in other energy infrastructure and the new embassy.
A UK government spokesperson said: “Floating offshore wind is key to harnessing more of our natural clean energy resources.
“We are working with the National Energy System Operator on delivering the strategic spatial energy plan, which will set out a strategy for how new infrastructure should be spread across the country and create growth in every postcode.”
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