Osama Saeed, the SNP's prospective parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Central, has today slammed the "thirty years of subterfuge" from successive Westminster governments following new revelations on Scotland's oil wealth.

New archive material in today's Times reveal plans to delay devolution, to manipulate the politics of Shetland and Orkney, and to redraw offshore boundaries. The full article can be read here.

Saeed, commenting on the papers, said: "Today's revelations are absolutely extraordinary, there's even throwbacks to good old fashion colonialism with the 'divide and rule' plan to encourage mini independent states in Orkney and Shetland.

"The tone of the proposals and the fact they could even be aired displays once again the utter contempt in which Scotland has been held by successive London governments. We're seen as nothing short of a cash cow, only for us to be further mocked by being told that we're too poor to be independent. In reality, they knew back then that had we been independent, we'd be running 'chronic surpluses to a quite embarrassing degree'.

"This is no small matter. These lies have meant that where we could have invested in our national public infrastructure with substantial oil revenues for thirty years, we've instead got some of the poorest areas in Western Europe.  We could be infinitely better off right now, and it is making Scots angry.

"It is not too late though – there's estimated to still be around 30billion barrels still under the North Sea. It's these realisations that mean Labour does not want to take the question of independence to the electorate any time soon."

Notes:

1. Oil Funds

Norwegian Oil Fund – Now over £200 billion
Alberta Oil Fund – £8.8 billion (May 2008)
Alaskan Oil Fund – £19 billion (March 2008)

"The example of Norwegian policy on Government revenue from oil likewise shows up the failure of British." McCrone report Page 5

Information released in 2002 under the 30-year publication rule showed that Edward Heath rejected the establishment of a Scottish Oil Fund made up of North Sea revenues because such a call was based on a "nationalistic premise"

Malcolm Wicks, Energy Minister The Guardian, 27 October 2007. "In the Norwegian sector of the oil field, where many of the crew had worked as well, the industry is organised somewhat differently . . . the tax revenues have been husbanded rather than spent by the government.

'If you could replay history, the idea as in Norway of building up a national [oil] fund is actually quite an attractive one'."


2. North Sea Production

Academics interviewed for the BBC have pointed to their being 30 billion barrels of oil left in the North Sea. 37 billion barrels have been removed over the last 30 years.

Professor Peter O'Dell, of the Erasmus University in the Netherlands, "There are at least 20, 25 even 30 billion barrels of the stuff left and that's quite a lot,"

"It's not quite as much as we've used already but it's not far short.

"Moreover, there are still parts of UK Continental Shelf that have never been examined at all in any great depth.

"So that could be the low end of a range that could take us into a period when we have access to as much oil again as we've already used."

3. The McCrone Report, 1975

"What is quite clear is that the balance of payments gain from North Sea oil would easily swamp the existing deficit whatever its size and transform Scotland into a country with a substantial and chronic surplus."
Page 6

"The country would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe, with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner."
Page 8

"An independent Scotland could now expect to have massive surpluses both on its budget and on its balance of payments and with the proper husbanding of resources this situation could last for a very long time into the future."
Page 16

"Thus, for the first time since the Act of Union was passed, it can now be credibly argued that Scotland's economic advantage lies in its repeal."
Page 16

"Britain is now counting so heavily on North Sea oil to redress its balance of payments that it is easy to imagine England in dire straits without it … it is now likely that transfer of North Sea oil to Scottish ownership would occasion much bitterness in England if not an attempt to forcibly prevent it."
Page 17