Today [Friday 13th June 2025], Leader of the
Conservative Party MP will give a speech at the
Scottish Conservative & Unionist Conference 2025.
In her speech Kemi is expected to say:
“Renewing our Party and our country means standing up for our oil
and gas industry.
When the Oil and Gas Windfall Tax, the Energy Profits Levy, was
brought in, the oil price was near a historic high, at the exact
time as energy bills for the British people were sky rocketing.
But there is no longer a windfall to tax. It has long gone. And
the longer this regressive tax on one of our most successful
industries remains, the more damaging it becomes.
Labour have extended and increased this tax. They are killing
this industry.
And frankly if it is allowed to remain in place until 2030, as is
Labour's current plan, there will be no industry left to tax.
Thousands will have been made unemployed and all while we import
more gas from overseas – from the very same basin in which we are
banned from drilling.
So today I say enough. Labour must remove the energy profits
levy. Labour must speed up the process of replacing it with a
system that rewards success and incentivises investment.
Because we shouldn't have this energy profits levy at all.
We must scrap the ban on new licences.
We must overturn the ban on supporting oil and gas technology
exports.
And we must champion our own industry.
We must let this great British, great Scottish industry thrive,
grow and create jobs – ensuring our energy security for
generations to come, driving growth and making this country
richer in the process.
Scotland at the heart of our energy future for the next
generation as it has for the last.
For decades, Aberdeen and the North East has been the energy
capital. Not just of the UK, but of Europe. It's often said that
wherever in the world you find oil and gas, you find an
Aberdonian.
The reason, because they are the product of a world leading
centre of excellence that has grown up around Aberdeen, the
supply chain, the research, the innovation that supports our and
the global offshore industry.
That is what we must protect. That is what we must champion. That
is what we must grow.”
