To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the Court of Session’s decision regarding the Rosebank oil field and the Jackdaw gas field. (S6F-03781)

The Government is considering carefully the court rulings that were announced last week. Decisions on offshore oil and gas licensing and consenting are currently reserved to the United Kingdom Government. We have been consistently clear that the UK Government should approach those decisions case by case on a rigorously evidence-led basis, with robust climate compatibility and energy security being key considerations.

Our North Sea workers are being failed by the Labour Government and by this devolved Scottish National Party Government. The decision on Rosebank and Jackdaw is a hammer blow to the north-east. We will import more oil and gas instead of using our own resources and supporting our own workers.

A poll by True North shows that nearly three quarters of Scots back the North Sea oil and gas industry. Will the First Minister also back the industry and drop his disastrous presumption against new oil and gas production before more jobs are lost?

What I will do is everything in my power to secure a just transition for everybody involved. We all realise that we will have to make a transition from dependence on fossil fuels, unless, of course, we are going to deny the climate crisis that we are facing. I, for one, am not going to deny the climate crisis.

I want to do everything that I can to support the transition for the workforce in the north-east of Scotland, just as I would like us to be in a position to do more to support the workers at Grangemouth who have been served with redundancy notices. I am deeply concerned by the lack of impetus that we have been able to secure, particularly in projects such as carbon capture and storage, which would provide such opportunities for the future of Grangemouth.

The Government will consider the court’s judgments. We will work with the oil and gas sector to manage the transition that lies ahead, because I want to ensure that we have a strong and prosperous future for those who are involved in oil and gas in Scotland and that we have a strong and prosperous future for the Scottish economy.

We are in a time of huge international tension and an ever-increasing risk of trade tariffs. The First Minister mentioned energy security. Is not the best way to protect energy security here and in Europe to produce as much oil and gas as we possibly can—not least because, as I hope the First Minister will know, the Equinor plan for the development of the Rosebank field states that the carbon footprint will be half the level of the existing North Sea average? Given that it will be electrification ready, the carbon footprint could reduce to 3kg of carbon per barrel, which is 25 times less than the carbon footprint of fracked gas from the USA or Qatar. Which is better for the environment: producing our own oil and gas or helping Donald Trump?

What I am interested in doing is ensuring that we manage the transition to net zero, because we cannot deny the climate crisis that we face. That will be the position that I adopt and observe, because the science tells me that that is the rational position for us to take. It will also dictate the approach that I take on energy policy and encouraging the move to sustainable energy security by the investments that we make in offshore renewables. Again, that is supported by the Government’s budget, which passed stage 1 on Tuesday, and is facilitated by outstanding interventions such as that from SGN in Methil, where there is a pilot project on using hydrogen as a replacement for gas in domestic power systems.

Scotland is leading the world on such innovation, and I am immensely proud of what our academic institutions and companies are doing to take forward that agenda. They will have the full support of the Scottish Government.