SNP figures look shakier as election looms

NICOLA Sturgeon’s demands for control of all tax and spending powers were dealt a fresh blow yesterday as it emerged Scotland’s North Sea revenues halved in just 12 months.

Nicola Sturgeon PH

Nicola Sturgeon faces a crisis as the revenues from North Sea oil dramatically decreases

Scottish Government figures show the country’s geographical share of oil and gas receipts fell from £1.2billion in the last three months of 2013 to £536million in the final quarter of last year.

The First Minister has said a dramatic redrawing of the Smith Commission powers to give Holyrood full fiscal powers would be the SNP’s price for propping up a minority Labour UK government.

With polls predicting the SNP will win up to 55 seats in May’s general election, and neither Labour nor the Tories will secure a majority, the prospect of the Nationalists entering government in Westminster continues to grow.

But economists have estimated that the SNP’s demands would cost Scotland £7billion this year thanks to the tumbling oil price.

Since last summer the price has dropped from US $110 a barrel to just $61.

The latest statistics from the Quarterly National Accounts for Scotland also show North Sea revenues fell by more than 30 per cent in the year to September 2014.

Opposition politicians said the figures showed the country would have faced a massive financial crisis if voters had backed independence.

Scottish Labour finance spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “The SNP’s general election plan for full fiscal autonomy means Scotland would lose our Barnett bonus.

“It would trade the stability and higher public spending on schools and hospitals that we get from Barnett, for the volatility and cuts with that would come from an over reliance on oil.

The SNP might think that is good for their election plan, but it’s a bad deal for Scotland.”

If Scotland were independent now it would not just be facing a jobs crisis in the North Sea, but a financial crisis too

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said it was just as well the country voted No last September. 

He added: “If Scotland were independent now it would not just be facing a jobs crisis in the North Sea, but a financial crisis too.”

But a spokesman for Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said: “Oil is a bonus, not the basis of Scotland’s economy – and most independent forecasts expect the price to rise again this year, with OPEC predicting a price of $110 per barrel for the rest of the decade.

“Current prices are nothing new – in 1999 they were around $10 a barrel, and Norway had just started to invest in its oil fund, which is now worth more than £500billion.”

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