David Bell: GERS show we must look to alternative sources of revenue

Yesterday's GERS figures for Scotland's fiscal balance in 2014-15 were entirely predictable.

A global crash in oil prices has seen revenues from the North Sea, and Scotlands share, plummet in value by 55 per cent in a year. Picture: PA

For the first two quarters of that financial year, oil prices averaged around $100 per barrel. Revenues from North Sea oil were flowing strongly. During the next two quarters, the oil price averaged around $50 per barrel and revenues stalled. The reduction in oil revenues from Scottish territorial waters between 2013-14 and 2014-15 was worth £2.2 billion – 10 per cent more than the entire yield from council tax or, equivalently, 10 per cent more than was spent by greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board on healthcare in the west of Scotland in 2014-15.

The case for Scotland’s fiscal independence has been built on highly volatile natural resource revenues. Events in world oil and gas markets over the last 18 months have seriously undermined this case. There will be no relief during the 2015-16 fiscal year just ending because oil has averaged closer to $30 per barrel in the last 12 months.

There is huge uncertainty around the world’s economic prospects. Faster growth would boost demand for oil but more efficient use of petrochemicals and the growing pressure to decarbonise the world economy may moderate demand and reduce the likelihood of prices returning to their 2008-9 levels, when Scotland’s oil revenues would have been £11.6bn compared with the paltry £1.8bn collected in 2014-15. The volatility of oil revenues would certainly have caused difficulties for an independent Scotland. Given that yesterday’s estimates suggest a non-oil deficit in 2014-15 of 11.9 per cent of GDP, it would have faced severe financial challenges from the outset. Yesterday’s quoted price for oil deliverable in 2024 was $51 per barrel. This does not suggest that the markets see any significant recovery of the oil price over the medium to long term. A more robust fiscal balance sheet for Scotland will have to be based on improvements in revenue from sources other than oil and/or cuts in public spending.

l David Bell FRSE is Professor of Economics at the University of Stirling