SNP will oppose Labour’s windfall tax plans – BBC News

Mr Yousaf said he favoured maintaining the windfall tax at the current 75% level.

The first minister said the SNP wanted to “unleash the potential of Scotland’s green revolution” while supporting jobs in the oil and gas industry.

But he said Labour’s plans would “raid the north-east energy industry” to a loss of some 100,000 jobs.

He said Labour’s decision to “dump” their £28bn pledge and “water down” energy plans showed that Scotland was “not the priority” for Labour.

“Westminster is so broken, so skewed to the right, that even Labour know they can’t win unless they promise to be just as right wing as the Conservatives.”

He said the tax proposals came on the back of Labour announcing it would no longer invest £28bn a year on green policies and it would instead commit to other policies such as wind farms and the clean energy firm GB Energy.

“The SNP will not let the north east go the way that coal and mining towns went under Thatcher – that is exactly what Labour is threatening to do.”

The Scottish Greens said future windfall taxes should be used to fund jobs in renewable energy and speed up the transition from fossil fuels, and not to “bankroll nuclear energy programmes in England or create a smokescreen for further oil and gas exploration”.

However, Labour’s Scottish secretary Ian Murray said Mr Yousaf’s position was “completely incoherent and out of touch”.

“Last year energy giants recorded profits of £33bn while a third of households in Scotland were living in fuel poverty,” he said.

“But after a dizzying series of U-turns, it seems the SNP has decided to side with the energy giants.

“It beggars belief that Humza Yousaf thinks that a person earning more than £28,500 deserves to pay more tax but energy giants earning billions in profits from soaring bills should pay less.”

He said the oil and gas sector would continue to play a “key role” in the UK energy system for decades to come, and Labour’s plans would “ensure” that future jobs and opportunities came to the north east.

The Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said the first minister displayed “breathtaking hypocrisy masquerading as a friend of Scotland’s oil and gas industry when he and the SNP have abandoned it at every opportunity.”

He cited the party’s opposition to new oil and gas licences and its refusal to back the Rosebank development.

Located 80 miles west of Shetland, Rosebank is the UK’s largest untapped oil field and is estimated to contain up to 300 million barrels of oil.

Regulators granted development and production approval to owners Equinor and Ithaca Energy in September.

Mr Ross also said Labour’s plans would be “catastrophic” for the region, adding: “You can barely put a cigarette paper between Labour and the SNP on this.”