Scotland has ignored oil opportunities

Your Letters (Herald) January 03 2007

In 1974 I went to the Middle East to work as a civil engineer. I had been a lecturer at Strathclyde University, and had actively supported the SNP. I authored the 1972 booklet, The Reality of Scotland's Oil, which drew attention to the potential benefits that an independent Scotland could expect from the great oil wealth discovered in the North Sea. Of course this booklet, and the SNP's own well-researched economic claims in their It's Scotland's Oil campaign, were roundly rubbished by the unionist press (including The Glasgow Herald).

We now know that even in the 1970s our unionist politicians knew the truth of the SNP's claims but were determined to hide this from voters.

In 1975, the Middle East was a fairly undeveloped area with little in the way of infrastructure and services. That is why I, and thousands of other British engineers, were going there. The region's oil wealth had risen greatly in value after the 1973 Arab/Israeli war, and this was now being invested frantically in the construction of roads, ports, water and drainage schemes, power stations, desalination plants, hospitals, schools and universities. Later, it became luxury hotels, shopping malls, apartment blocks, libraries and museums, business parks and theme parks; now even the world's tallest building. The tangible fruits of their oil wealth are there for all to see. Their worldwide investment portfolios are even more impressive. Millions of people now go to the Gulf countries on holiday and are no doubt astonished at what they find in cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Doha and Bahrain. Not as astonished as I am, since I first saw all these places in the 1970s.

In all this, where stands Scotland, itself a major oil producer for 30 years? World oil production is around 0.6 tons/year/head of world population. The figure for the US has averaged 1.2 tons/year/head. But the vast majority of countries are at nil or less than 1.0.Over the past 10 years (and for a good number of years before that) Scotland has produced an average of around 20 tons of oil/year/head of population. For comparison, let us look at the mega-rich Arab Gulf countries. For Kuwait and the UAE, the figure is around 55; for Saudi Arabia, it is 23. The Norwegian figure is way up there with the big boys at around 30 tons/year/head, which helps explain how they have managed to build up a heritage fund in excess of £100bn for future generations, while still being now Europe's most prosperous country. So you can see that Scotland has been (in oil production terms at least) in the big league.

So where has Scotland gone wrong? Why are we the only country in the world whose population has stayed static for the past 50 years while the world's population has soared from 2.5 billion to 6 billion? Why have we had, at 1.8%, the lowest average GDP growth in western Europe over the past 30 years? Why is it that, of all the countries of western Europe, only in Scotland is male life expectancy still below 70 years? It is the same with indicators such as the percentage of people either unemployed or not in employment through incapacity, our car ownership rate and other measures of economic wellbeing.

All that oil wealth we produced, oil wealth that transformed the Gulf countries and Norway, has simply passed us by. We even suffer the annual indignity of being taunted by our unionist leaders about how much we are indebted to a subsidy from England for our very survival as one of western Europe's poorest countries. I used to think that there was something wrong with Scottish voters that so many could be so easily fooled and deceived, election after election, especially by the Labour Party. But at least they had an excuse – like those who voted for the war in Iraq. I now see that the real "dummies" in Scotland have been our own business and commercial people.

They have, for 30 years, totally failed to see the economic opportunities that would have arisen in an independent oil-rich Scotland. A trip to the Middle East would soon put them right. The economic opportunities, and the best oil-related jobs, were snapped up by London and the south-east, where control of our industry lay, and they didn't notice.

Scotland still has a lot of oil left to be produced and it has become very, very valuable. In this coming year, "energy security" will come to be recognised as an important quality for a country to have. Scotland will have that in spades. Perhaps in 2007 our business leaders, and even the voters, will finally get the message.

Nick Dekker, 1 Nairn Way, Cumbernauld.

We'll keep the oil, you can have the Trident submarines

By Paul Henderson Scott, Sunday Telegraph

Last weekend in Oban, the Scottish Labour Party held a very unusual conference. A succession of ministers from the Westminster Government, beginning with Tony Blair and followed by Scottish MPs Gordon Brown, John Reid and Douglas Alexander, all indulged in hysterical speeches about what they saw as the dangers of Scottish independence. They spoke as if it would be a strange anomaly in the modern world of increasing interdependence. Have they failed to notice that in recent years all the old empires, including the British, and most of the multinational states have resolved into their component parts? It is Scotland (probably the oldest nation in Europe) that is the anomaly in failing so far to follow the modern tendency.

"We are two open countries, England and Scotland," Mr Blair said, "open to each other and open to the world." So they would remain with Scottish, or Scottish and English, independence. We should both be members states of the European Union and of the United Nations. On most issues we should agree and be able to support one another.

As separate states, we should have more influence in Europe as two voices than as one; more seats in the European Parliament and more votes in the Council of Ministers. But when our interests and views differed, Scotland would be able to state its own case. And, of course, we should still have free movement of people and goods, not only between us but over the whole of the European Union. Scottish independence would remove grievances between England and Scotland, not increase them.

advertisementWe have a parallel close to home. Ireland, as part of the UK, was impoverished and resentful. As an independent country it is contented and prosperous. The small independent nations of Europe, such as Ireland, Norway, Iceland and Finland, are among the most prosperous. Small countries are closer and more responsive to the needs of their citizens and more flexible in responding to changing circumstances in the global economy.

An independent Scotland would, of course, have to stand on its own feet financially. There would be no suspicion, as there is at present in England, that it is being subsidised from south of the border. In fact, the financial flow is in the opposite direction because of the proceeds of the oil in Scottish waters, which, at the current oil price, is worth about £10 billion a year. The oil revenues have been seized by Westminster, although under international law they are a Scottish asset. That is presumably one reason why the present British Government would like to hold on to Scotland. This may be a contentious issue but, after all, oil is a diminishing asset, Westminster has enjoyed it for 30-odd years, and that is probably at least half of the total.

With independence, Scotland would assume responsibility for its own defence, with such international agreements as it might wish to make. This is one of the issues where majority opinion in Scotland and England diverge. Most people in England still seem to hold on to the idea of Britain (or England) as a world power. From this follows a desire to renew the so-called nuclear deterrent.

We in Scotland see no advantage in trying to act as a major power, especially if in practice it means hanging on to the coat-tails of the United States. This is the attitude that leads to such disasters as the Iraq war and the consequent provocation of terrorism.

This, of course, brings us to the awkward matter of the nuclear submarines on the Clyde. In the opinion of most people in Scotland, they are immoral, useless, hideously expensive (an independent Scotland would be more than happy to have to contribute towards them no longer) and always liable to an explosion, either accidentally or as a consequence of a terrorist attack. They are close to our major centre of population. How can Britain express indignation about other countries seeking to obtain nuclear weapons when it proposes, contrary to its treaty obligations, to renew its own? British nuclear weapons should be abolished, which might be an encouragement to other countries to do the same.

If England takes a different view from an independent Scotland, what happens? An elaborate and expensive base has been built for the submarines at Faslane. It would take time to build a new base in England and one can imagine the outcry from people living close to it. If that consideration helps to influence a decision against renewal, so much the better. If not, perhaps an English government could persuade the United States to allow them to share one of their bases. They use the same technology, after all, and it is highly improbable that an English government would ever want to start a nuclear war on its own.

• Paul Henderson Scott is a former diplomat. He has written many books on Scottish history, politics and culture. The most recent is The Union of 1707: Why and How (Saltire Society)

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/03/nuk103.xml