Alba call on Swinney to back new oil & gas licences

ALBA Party have called on SNP leader John Swinney to “get off the fence” and state his party’s position on the future of Scotland’s North Sea.

Alba say that the First Minister’s refusal to back new Oil & Gas licences aligns the SNP leader with the policy of the Labour Party which experts predict could cost Scotland 100,000 jobs.

In an STV leaders debate on Monday evening, and again today under questioning during a Sky News interview, Mr Swinney refused to answer “yes or no” as to whether the SNP supported new oil and gas licences being granted.

Alba Party Candidate for Aberdeen North. Charlie Abel says that unless the SNP back new licences being granted then “the position of the SNP and Labour in regards to wrecking the North East economy will be identical.”

Last year’s GERS figures showed that North Sea Oil and Gas Revenues were a record high for Scotland with £9.4 billion raised in the past financial year. Alba candidate Charlie Abel says that “ it would be daft to sacrifice such an overwhelming bounty for Scotland when Scotland’s Oil & Gas can be the engine room of an independent Scotland and the resource which is used to fund the development of a Net Zero future. It is absurd that the leader of the SNP can’t give a straight answer to North East Communities. It is time for John Swinney to come off the fence, does he support new licences being granted in the North Sea - Yes or No?”

Alba Party want to see new fields licensed with a condition for them to be a zero carbon development and they say this can be achieved by carbon capture - a technology Alba claims Scotland could be the world leader in if the UK Government invested a fraction of oil revenues for a “rapid development of a carbon capture network.”

Commenting Alba Party Candidate for Aberdeen North Charlie Abel said:

"It would be an act of great folly to sacrifice the enormous potential of Scotland’s Oil and Gas Sector, the billions it generates in revenues and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it sustains all to appease the Greens who don’t want any new oil fields to be developed.

“While John Swinney dithers on the future of Scotland’s North Sea Oil and Gas industry he completely fails to realise that there is a bright future for the industry, that uses technology such as carbon capture to have net zero licence requirements to new fields. That is the sort of sensible policy that Scotland needs.