Don’t rely on oil

You quote for the umpteenth time the assertion that the oil left in the North Sea is “worth” “up to” £1,500 billion (3 September).

Finance secretary John Swinney and the PR machine have said this so many times that it must be true!

Alex Orr (Letters, 31 August), however, said it was £1,000 billion. The 21 August Scotsman referred to the costs of extracting this bounty as £1,000bn. Draw your own conclusions.

Whatever, the actual value to us over perhaps the next three decades is nowhere near even £500bn. The oil firms have to take their profits by selling to the highest bidders and they get numerous subsidies and tax reliefs too.

Our likely long-term revenues are reflected in the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland figures for 2011-2012, with an estimate for that year of a fiscal deficit of nearly £7bn with all the oil.

The oil will not enable us to meet our public expenditures, and it will run out, so inexorably increasing the deficit.

What is scary is that our deficit economy is not being addressed, although everyone will be more affected year by year.

It would be reassuring if we could learn how the missing income could be met, noting that younger voters will be particularly hard hit over time.

Joe Darby

Dingwall

Ross-shire