Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer are destroying the offshore oil industry and undermining Britain’s energy security, a leading oil and gas company has said.

David Latin, the chairman of Serica Energy, claimed that windfall taxes and political opposition had made Britain the most hostile country he had ever operated in outside of war zones.

Mr Latin said: “I have been involved in this industry for more than 30 years and have worked all over the world.

“Other than when I was responsible for a company which had significant assets in a war zone, I have never encountered a [political] situation which was so challenging when it comes to making investment decisions, and planning for the future more generally, as it is in the UK at present.”

Mr Latin said he was moving investments out of UK waters because the taxes and regulations imposed on the industry were too onerous and kept changing.

State of constant uncertainty

His comments, in a speech released in advance of Serica’s annual meeting today, were focused partly on the Conservative government, which first imposed a windfall tax in the spring of 2022, and later increased the rate and extended its duration. 

These multiple changes, said Mr Latin, left the industry in a state of constant uncertainty and destroyed investor confidence.

Those problems were compounded by Labour, which has pledged to raise the tax again while also stripping the industry of the investment allowances should it be elected.

Such allowances, which allow companies to offset investment against profit, are common to all businesses, so removing them from a single industry would set a major precedent.

Mr Latin said that oil and gas producers already pay tax at an overall tax rate of 75pc, three times that charged to UK companies in other industries.