The truth is that our North Sea oil money disappeared into a gaping maw in Whitehall

I HAVE to confess that, unlike JohnPaul Marney (Letters, July 19), I am not an expert so would not regard the Wood Mackenzie report on shale extraction as bedtime reading.

However, I am well aware of the fact that there is a moratorium on fracking in Scotland, which is likely to turn into an outright ban for environmental reasons. I have a sneaking suspicion that no shale would be fracked where he lives.

His remark that “there may well still be oil and gas in the North Sea” is designed to question the fact of the vast reserves that are there; my comment (Letters, July 18) meant that it would be far safer working in the North Sea than in the oil-producing war-torn countries in the Middle East.

He states: “To hear the way the Nationalists talk of oil you would imagine they had extracted the stuff themselves”, oblivious to the fact that the Treasury took all the money. However, it would seem Mr Marney is somewhat lacking in historical knowledge. Scotland never had the oil; when it was discovered around the start of the 1970s, Donald Bain, the SNP research officer, estimated that it could be worth £800 million a year. The Treasury mocked that figure and said it was negligible. They then invented a new heading, the Continental Shelf, and all the oil money disappeared into the gaping maw in Whitehall. They were terrified of Scottish independence.

Thirty years after that episode, Cabinet papers were released and the McCrone Report was published. This showed the SNP figures were wrong – there was not £800 million, there were billions upon billions, and the facts had to be kept quiet, well away from these greedy Nationalists. The civil service even drew up provisional boundary changes showing a “Shetland Box”, as Westminster would keep these islands, and extending the English-Scottish boundary out to Norway.

All this was very hush hush, but after the information was released BBC Alba produced a documentary, Diomhair (Secrets), laying bare the whole sorry mess. The sea boundary between Scotland and England was changed surreptitiously on April 13, 1999. The border latitude had previously been set by the UK Government with the Continental Shelf Jurisdiction Order 1968 at 55 50. This order acknowledged Scottish marine jurisdiction north of this border line of latitude which lies eastwest just north of Berwick on Tweed. This was also the line to which the Scottish Fisheries Cruisers operated.

According to The Herald (May 23, 1999) the Scottish Adjacent Boundaries Order 1999 was passed by the Lords and the Committee on Delegated Legislation on March 23, 1999. It was not openly debated in the Commons. When the map coordinates were finally obtained and plotted in 2010 we found 6,000 square miles containing six oilfields: Fulmar, Auk, Clyde, Janice, Angus and Fife transferred to England.

Norway discovered similar amounts of oil at the same time, but being an independent country used it sensibly and now have probably the largest investment fund in the world. Jim Lynch, 42 Corstorphine Hill, Crescent, Edinburgh.