Labour has unveiled plans to establish a new oil and gas bulletin to replace a system controversially axed by the Scottish Government.
Shadow UK Energy Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said the proposed analytical bulletin would report to both the Holyrood and Westminster governments.
Speaking ahead of a visit to Aberdeen today, she said that the SNP government’s decision to abandon its own system “isn’t acceptable”.
The briefings were published in the run-up to the independence referendum in 2014, with the first using a “cautious” estimate of an oil price of $113 a barrel to argue Scotland could yield £48billion in tax revenues by 2018.
Further bulletins were published in November 2013 and May 2014 – with the next and last “topical analytical briefing” not appearing until 2015.
The Scottish Government has said the “requirement for any analytical bulletins is kept under review, and there is already a wealth of other published information on the industry”.
But Ms Long-Bailey said: “We think the health and issues facing the industry need to be regularly reported on, both to the Scottish Government and to Westminster, so that we are aware of the challenges that it faces.
“The SNP not reporting on it since 2015 isn’t acceptable, so in power we would report regularly so we could assess its health, and also what needs to happen.
“It will give us an opportunity as politicians to monitor what’s happening in the industry, but that won’t be the only aspect of support and collaborative monitoring that we would implement.”
The Salford and Eccles MP told the Press and Journal that a future Labour government would also move to establish an oil and gas council.
“One of the key parts of our industrial strategy, for example, is to set up sector councils, based on the automotive council, which we set up under a Labour government,” she said.
“It brings the industry together with the businesses in it, trade unions, academics and experts in the field to meet regularly to discuss what we need to do to drive the industry forward, and what areas of research and development we need to pursue, how we can diversify the industry, because there are a number of processes and technologies applicable to a number of different industries.”
