Kemi Badenoch calls for end to windfall tax on oil and gas companies

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for an end to the windfall tax on oil and gas companies and said new licenses should be issued for drilling in the North Sea.

Addressing the Scottish Conservative party conference in Edinburgh, Badenoch said the tax – known as Energy Profits Levy – should be scrapped before its current 2030 expiration.

The levy was brought in by the previous Conservative UK government but Badenoch said her party had got this wrong.

Opposition politicians criticised Badenoch’s comments and the End Fuel Poverty Coalition described them as “out of touch”.

The Tory leader also claimed that Scotland had “declined” under left wing parties and that the SNP had wasted millions on “independence propaganda”.

The Energy Profits Levy was introduced in May 2022 after oil and gas companies recorded skyrocketing profits due to a sharp rise in energy prices, in part due to the war in Ukraine.

It has since been both extended and increased, with the current scheme due to end in 2030.

The oil and gas sector says the windfall tax is holding back investment.

Badenoch told the Scottish Conservative conference that as part of renewing her party she would be “standing up for our oil and gas”.

She claimed the windfall tax on the sector is wrong as “for months there has been no windfall to tax”.

The Tory leader said: “The strikes overnight in the Middle East remind us of how vital it is that we can rely on our own energy security, our own natural resources.”

Badenoch said Labour’s extension of the tax is “killing the oil and gas industry”.

To applause from the conference, she said a Tory government would “scrap the ban on new licences”.

Scottish Conservatives leader Russell Findlay earlier said it would be a “complete act of national self-harm” not to continue drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.

He told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “We are the party who completely support the North Sea oil and gas industry.

“The SNP in Edinburgh are completely hostile to any form of new exploration, and it’s exactly the same with Sir Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband in London.

“They want to leave this oil and gas in the North Sea and import oil and gas from further afield. It makes absolutely no sense.”

Responding to Badenoch, Simon Francis, of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “Even with the windfall tax in place, the energy industry made over £115bn in profits in 2024 alone.

“Meanwhile, average household energy bills remain hundreds and hundreds of pounds higher than they were before the energy crisis started.”

SNP MSP Kevin Stewart said: “The Tories wrecked our economy, presided over soaring household bills and ripped Scotland from the EU against our will.”

Dame Jackie Baillie, the deputy leader of Scottish Labour, claimed the Tories are on the side of oil and gas companies “rather than working Scots”.