Public needs trustworthy facts on revenues

Published on Sunday 27 December 2009 20:42

FIRST Minister Alex Salmond has erupted in outrage over the latest figures on North Sea oil revenues. They show that even if an independent Scotland received the total oil and gas revenue raised by the Treasury, it would still have been left with a spending deficit of £3.5 billion. Moreover, if the figures are taken back to cover 1980-1 to 2007-8, Scotland would have accumulated a deficit of £23.5bn.

In addition, on a 82.5 per cent geographic share of revenues, the picture would be even worse, with the annual deficit projected at 4.8bn.

Little wonder the SNP leader is furious. The figures undermine SNP claims that an independent Scotland would enjoy a healthy surplus were it to receive the oil revenues. The figures are contained in a report by Scotland Office and Treasury economists. Mr Salmond suspects they are no more than unionist propaganda and attempts by the "London government" to undermine the SNP case for independence, already rocked by the massive injections needed to keep Scotland's two biggest banks afloat. Unionists retort that the SNP figures depend on capital investment costs being excluded.

What are voters to make of this claim and counter-claim? They will arrive at their own conclusions in the course of the debate. But this argument has been raging for years. As it grows more heated towards the date of the election, the case for an independent statistical body to produce figures untainted by cries of bias will become ever more compelling. Voters need figures they can trust.