Scotland’s energy sector warned that reforming the windfall tax was vital to secure investment in renewables and protect jobs. But the budget’s silence on the issue leaves the green transition – and the North Sea’s future – hanging in the balance, says Peter Hourston

Scotland’s energy industry was united. Renewables and oil and gas businesses could not have been clearer: securing the country’s green industrial future required not only support for investment in clean energy but removal of the windfall tax on the North Sea. Unfortunately, the chancellor did not listen. There will now be serious consequences for our economy and the transition to clean energy.

Out to sea, oil and gas rigs are very much still in production and they stand alongside a rapidly expanding array of offshore wind turbines, some of them deploying the latest cutting-edge floating equipment. The twin spectacles are often presented as being in competition, but in reality, the fates of hydrocarbons and renewable energy are intertwined.

The green industrial transition is the 21st century’s biggest economic prize, one which Scotland can seize: tens of thousands of skilled jobs, industrial growth and a pathway to net zero. Yet the budget was silent on the necessary actions.

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The key issue of the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), the extra tax on oil........

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