Andrew Bowie

I add my congratulations to those of many others on the birth of the Secretary of State’s child recently. I read with some interest that the leader of the Scottish Labour party is considering publishing a league table to rank the performance of his Scottish Labour MPs. I will not ask the Secretary of State to say where he thinks he may sit in that table, but I will ask about jobs and the economy, specifically in relation to the energy industry. As a direct result of the eco-zealotry emanating from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the increase in the energy profits levy, the ban on new licences and the refusal even to defend the issuing of licences to Rosebank and Jackdaw, there will be a reduction in the total economic value of the oil and gas sector of £13 billion over the next four years, with 35,000 direct jobs at risk. Can the Secretary of State tell the House, as Scotland’s man in the Cabinet—the man on whom we all rely to make Scotland’s case and to act in Scotland’s interests—whether he has made any overtures to his beleaguered colleague at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, or indeed to the Treasury, to stop this madness?