John Swinney has said his SNP “will always stand with the workers in our energy sector” as he accused Westminster of treating the industry as a “cash cow”.

The Scottish First Minister said that decisions made by Westminster – which has imposed the windfall tax on the oil and gas sector – were “crippling investment” and “risking up to 1,000 jobs a month” in the sector, while also putting UK energy security “at risk”.

The First Minister spoke out on the issue while campaigning in Aberdeen, the home of much of the UK’s oil and gas industry, ahead of Thursday’s Holyrood election.

The SNP wants to support our energy sector and lower your bills – and the other parties are trying to stop us

Scottish First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney

The SNP had previously been strongly opposed to new drilling in the North Sea, but recently the First Minister appears to have softened his party’s stance on this, saying that energy security must be considered, along with the impact on the climate.

And he accused the Labour Government at Westminster of having “let down our energy sector which it has only ever treated as a cash cow”.

With energy one of the major issues in the Holyrood election campaign, the Scottish First Minister insisted: “It is Scotland’s energy and it should be in Scotland’s hands.

“Westminster control of Scotland’s energy is crippling investment, risking up to 1,000 jobs a month and putting our energy security at risk – just this week BP has reported they are considering leaving the North Sea.”

Reports this weekend indicated that the energy giant has begun an internal review of its North Sea operations, though no final decision had been made.

Mr Swinney however has already said he is “very concerned” by the situation.

He pledged to “stand by” workers in the energy sector, including in the renewables sector and those involved in its supply chain, where concerns have been raised in the past about Scotland missing out on work supplying the parts for turbines.

Mr Swinney said: “I will never stand by as Scottish jobs are cast on the scrapheap with the workforce and supply chain we need to deliver renewables jobs lost.

“We will always stand with the workers in our energy sector.”

The First Minister told voters: “The SNP wants to support our energy sector and lower your bills – and the other parties are trying to stop us.

“They want people to vote for an opposition to stop things happening, I am asking people to vote for an SNP Government to get things done.”

He insisted it was “completely absurd that in energy rich Scotland, energy jobs are going down while our energy bills are going up” with the SNP leader adding: “That is why we need the fresh start of independence.”

Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay, meanwhile, was “clear that there needs to be no new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea” but said that that had to “come alongside a transition for those energy workers that are already there”.

She added: “We’ve seen what happens at Grangemouth and Mosmorran when companies cut and run when it becomes too hard.

“For BP to be pulling out of the North Sea when it has just posted billions of pounds of profit just shows what happens when we leave it to these big energy companies, rather than taking control of the transition ourselves.

“Successive governments haven’t done enough to support these communities and we need to see that shift very quickly in the next few years.”

A UK Government spokesperson said: “We’ve set out a plan for the North Sea to become the clean energy powerhouse of Britain, backed by record investment to grow these industries in Scotland.

“This will protect jobs now and create the next generation of skilled roles, including over 40,000 new clean energy jobs in Scotland by 2030.”