A senior SNP minister has refused to back two key new North Sea drilling projects – leading to claims that her party is trying to ‘dupe voters’ about its position.

Climate Action Minister Gillian Martin declined to support the Rosebank and Jackdaw projects, which could generate billions of pounds for the economy and safeguard thousands of jobs in the North-East.

It comes despite the SNP’s candidate in the Aberdeen South by-election demanding ‘sensible licensing decisions’ in order to ‘protect oil and gas jobs in the here and now’.

Speaking to the news website Politico, Ms Martin refused to say whether she would support Rosebank and Jackdaw, saying only that there should be ‘climate compatibility checkpoints’ throughout the process to prevent ‘court wrangles’.

She added: ‘Asking a Scottish Government minister who doesn’t have the powers and doesn’t have all the detail of the application in front of them? Yeah, that’s for Ed Miliband.’

Her comments came as oil and gas continues to dominate the campaign in Aberdeen South, which is close to Ms Martin’s own Aberdeenshire East seat.

The by-election was called after Stephen Flynn quit Westminster, where he was the SNP’s leader, following his election to Holyrood.

Douglas Lumsden, the Scottish Conservative candidate, said: ‘Yet again, a senior SNP minister is shamefully refusing to back Scotland’s oil and gas sector.

‘The SNP are spending this by-election campaign trying to dupe voters into believing they are on the side of oil and gas workers when nothing could be further from the truth. The by-election is a referendum on the future of the oil and gas industry – and voters have the chance to send a clear message to the SNP and Labour that they will not tolerate the taps being turned off in the North Sea.’

Voters will go to the polls in Aberdeen South next Thursday, as well as in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry where a by-election was called following Nationalist MP Stephen Gethins’ switch to Holyrood. 

Richard Thomson, the SNP’s candidate for Aberdeen South, urged Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to apologise to 70,000 oil and gas workers who lost their jobs under the last Tory government, when employment in the industry fell from 153,000 in 2010 to 83,700 in 2023.

He said: ‘Kemi Badenoch should apologise for 14 years of Tory theft, destruction and callousness. Only the SNP will use Scotland’s energy wealth to enrich the Scottish people.

‘We do that by putting Scotland’s energy in Scotland’s hands to end the windfall tax, to take sensible licensing decisions and to protect oil and gas jobs in the here and now.’

Mr Thomson added: ‘We cannot let the Tories or Nigel Farage get their hands on Aberdeen South and only the SNP can beat them both.’