The Independent
Friday 09 December 2005
It was a document that could have changed the course of Scottish history. Nineteen pages long, Written in an elegant, understated academic hand by the leading Scottish economist Gavin McCrone, presented to the Cabinet office in April 1975 and subsequently buried in a Westminster vault for thirty years. It revealed how North Sea oil could have made an independent Scotland as prosperous as Switzerland.
The Freedom of Information Act has yielded many insights and revelations into the working of the British government, but none so vivid as the contents of Professor McCrone's paper, written on request in the dog days of Ted Heath's Tory government and only just unearthed under the FOI rules.
Earlier this week, the Chancellor Gordon Brown underlined the vital revenue stream that North Sea oil still is in the context of British politics. In his pre-budget report, Mr Brown extracted an extra £6.5b in tax from North Sea oil and gas producers, to be taken over the next three years. Economists like the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable say that high oil prices have already bailed out the Treasury to the tune of £1 billion this year.
Imagine then, what the oil could have done for a Scotland which chose independence in the mid 1970s and claimed ownership of the reserves.
Thirty years ago, Professor McCrone answered that very question and his conclusions shocked his political masters.
Although BP first discovered the giant Forties oilfield in 1970 - which by 1977 was producing 500,000 barrels of oil a day, equivalent to a quarter of Nigeria's entire daily production - the real rush for "black gold" had only begun around 1973, when the Yom Kippur War caused a crisis in the Middle East and forced prices up to around $16 a barrel.
Within days of its receipt at Westminster in 1974, Professor McCrone's document was judged as incendiary and classified as secret. It would be sat upon for the next thirty years.
The mandarins demanded that Professor McCrone's 19-page analysis be given "only a most restricted circulation in the Scottish Office because of the extreme sensitivity of the subject." The subject was sensitive alright.
This is a story of Whitehall betrayal that will satisfy the pre-conceptions of the most extreme Scottish anglophobe.
Much more:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/how-black-gold-was-hijacked-north-sea-oil-and-the-betrayal-of-scotland-518697.html
Thatcher made ‘secret cuts’ to Scottish budget
A SECRET strategy of “invisible” cuts to Scotland’s budget was drawn up by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1984, official papers released under the 30-year rule today have revealed.
The official papers covering the discussions before the budget reveal how senior figures believed that Scotland’s was over-provided for by £900 million, around 15 per cent of its £6 billion budget.
The senior figures involved in the talks included chief treasury secretary Peter Rees, Mrs Thatcher’s chief policy adviser, later Welsh secretary John Redwood and the prime minister’s private secretary, later head of the civil service Andrew Turnbull.
The papers have been released at a politically sensitive time when the future of the Barnett Formula, which decides how much money is allocated to Scotland, has become a major issue in the run-up to next year’s independence referendum.
The Scottish Government claims that there are plans to slash Scotland’s budget by £4bn in the event of a No vote.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/thatcher-made-secret-cuts-to-scottish-budget-1-3253890
The history of this is what is also fueling independence.......
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