Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 10 December 2025.
Audrey Nicoll
Scottish National Party
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its engagement with the United Kingdom Government regarding the energy profits levy and its implications for North East Scotland. (S6O-05270)
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
When the First Minister met the Prime Minister last week, he made it clear that the UK Government must act now or run the risk of delivering irreversible deindustrialisation and decline in Scotland’s economy. The energy industry is facing an existential threat unless it gets the support that it needs from the UK Government—including the removal of the energy profits levy—to help to ensure that there is a just transition from oil and gas to renewables that protects skills and delivers a pipeline of future investment.
Audrey Nicoll
Scottish National Party
The replacement windfall tax mechanism ignores the fact that the industry needs certainty now, as job losses are already reaching levels of around 1,000 a month. Furthermore, the EPL undermines the shift to a balanced energy mix, as the loss of the requisite skills and experience from the north-east gathers pace. Most alarming of all, HM Treasury stipulates that a windfall occurs only at a Brent oil price of around $95, which is a price that has not been seen in three years. That means that the EPL is, according to the Government’s own determination, unwarranted.
Does the Cabinet secretary agree that retaining the EPL until 2030 risks thousands of avoidable North Sea job losses and that, instead, bringing forward the new oil and gas price mechanism to 2026 will protect jobs, stimulate investment and deliver much-needed energy and job security?
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
I agree very much with Audrey Nicoll’s proposition. I share the concern that the retention of the energy profits levy risks further consequences for jobs and investment across Scotland’s energy sector over the coming weeks, months and years. As the First Minister set out to the Prime Minister last week, the energy industry will continue to face a threat unless it gets the support that it needs from the UK Government. The First Minister pressed that point very firmly. Such support must include an urgent transition from the EPL to a fairer fiscal mechanism, to help to ensure that there is a just transition from oil and gas to renewables that protects skills and delivers a future investment pipeline.
Liam Kerr
Conservative
With the likes of Stephen Flynn and John Swinney previously demanding an even higher EPL and one without investment allowances, I am very pleased that the Scottish National Party has reversed its position to align with Conservative calls to scrap the levy. Will the Government now also reverse its presumption against oil and gas, which is doing so much damage to north-east jobs and the north-east economy?
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
That is very much a rewriting of the history of the energy profits levy. It was the Conservatives who introduced the EPL, and we did not support its extension to 2029, which happened under the previous Conservative UK Government, or its further extension to 2030 and the increase in the rate that was confirmed at last year’s UK autumn budget. The Conservatives are fooling no one on this point.
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