THE UK Energy Minister has accused Nicola Sturgeon of “spooking investors” in the North Sea oil and gas sector.

Greg Hands told the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen that the First Minister’s opposition to the proposed Cambo oil field had been a factor in it stalling.

He also said the SNP would be better named the "Scottish Dependency Party", as it would leave the country dependent on oil and gas from Russia.

“They will sacrifice everything and everyone else to maintain ideological purity,” he said.

The SNP pointed out the UK was dependent on Scotland's oil and gas.

Last year, Ms Sturgeon urged the UK Government to reassess the development application for the Cambo oil field, but stopped short of opposing it outright.

However days after the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, Ms Sturgeon rewrote decades of SNP policy by saying it "should not get the green light". 

She told MSPs that "the presumption would be that Cambo could not and should not pass any rigorous climate assessment", with the implication that other fields shouldn’t either.

A month later, the Cambo project was shelved after Shell withdrew its minority investment.

Siccar Point Energy, which owns the other 70 per cent of the field, announced drilling could no longer proceed as planned.

Despite the SNP’s Michael Matheson being the Scottish Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, Mr Hands started his speech by stressing energy was reserved to Westminster.

He said: “Because energy is reserved, I’m also very much Scotland’s energy and climate change minister.”

Arguing for a diverse energy sector that included fossil fuels as well as renewables and new nuclear, he said: “We can’t do everything with renewables alone, and it can’t all be built overnight. That’s why we need our North Sea oil and gas sector right now.

“Fifty per cent of our gas needs are met by the North Sea, with gas prices five to 15 times the historic average at the moment, we don’t want to be importing more gas than we are at the present.

“Only the Conservatives give the sector the strong support and political backing it needs. 

“I think Labour gave up on the North East some time ago. And now the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon are flirting with those who want to close down the sector entirely. 

“At a critical time for the Cambo project off the coast of Shetland, she spoke out against it, spooking investors.

“Earlier this week she wrote her own op-ed - in other words, her own voluntarily written article - that North Sea oil and gas couldn’t provide the short term answer to energy security.

“But on that very same day we brought on line a new field off the coast of north east England as well as five new fields in the last quarter of 2021, most of them in Scotland.”

He said the SNP were “ideologically opposed” to nuclear power, “lost in a previous world before Vladimir Putin weaponized world energy markets”.

He claimed Rolls Royce had “been rebuffed” by the Scottish Government when it proposed its small modular reactors, already intended for England and Wales, also come to Scotland. 

He said: “That would be a crazy way to run an energy policy. They call themselves the SNP but in many ways they are a new version of the SDP - the Scottish Dependency Party, dependent on imported and Russian oil and gas, which is what we would be if we didn’t have our own North Sea capability and our own homegrown nuclear sector.”

Mr Hands said he was a passionate Unionist and loved “taking on the Nats and Labour in the House of Commons every week”.

He said the SNP MPS were “very predictable” as everything was seen through the lens of independence, adding: “They will sacrifice everything and everyone else to maintain ideological purity, whether it be North Sea oil and gas workers or the nuclear tradition at Hunterston, Chapelcross, Torness and Dounreay.” 

Aberdeen South SNP MP Stephen Flynn, said: “Let’s be clear, when Greg Hands is talking about oil dependency he is actually talking about the rest of the UK.

“It’s Scotland’s oil, and the reality is that Scotland’s oil production far exceeds Scotland’s own domestic demands.

“Moreover, we know that Scotland’s burgeoning renewables sector already produces the equivalent of 97% of our domestic needs – and we’re only just getting started.

“The notion that a nation as energy rich as Scotland is dependent on others is as disingenuous as it is insulting – but we shouldn’t be surprised at UK Ministers talking Scotland down.

“What we should all be focusing on right now is how we utilise Scotland’s resources to benefit our friends and allies across Europe.”