Oil for the taking

Bob Taylor refers to Scotland’s post-oil economy (Letters, 15 August).however, accord“past ing to Goldman Sachs major European oil companies are making more profits at $50 per barrel than they did at $100 but the UK Government is not taxing them when compared to Norway. While the oil sector has successfully lobbied for, and won, huge tax breaks from the UK Government, many of the companies involved continue to pursue aggressive tax avoidance as standard practice. UK oil revenues have fallen 99 per cent since 2014 yet oil price has fallen by only 54 per cent and output actually increased by 15 to 20 per cent. Why it is that Norway, with roughly twice the North Sea oil and gas output of the UK, raised £9,500 million in oil revenues in 2015 whereas the UK only raised £76 million?

Scotland has the best balance of trade figures of all the four home nations and the latest quarterly figures show that the UK’S growth is lower than even Greece and UK productivity now lags 16 per cent behind the average G7 nation.

There are still tens of billions of barrels of oil off Scotland’s shores. It’s not too late to take control of it and do an infinitely better job for the future than Westminster has done in the past and present.

After independence the Scottish Government would reject the big PLC bias of London policy makers, tackle wholesale tax avoidance and take a leaf out of the German economy’s book and invest heavily on an SME growth plan.

Scottish North Sea oil is highly profitable but it’s not being taxed and this is something to consider when the next set of GERS figures is produced.

FRASER GRANT Warrender Park Road

Edinburgh