As resident of Aberdeen — the Energy Capital of Europe — I am surrounded by oil related businesses. Some of them are huge multi-national organisations drilling and extracting oil from the Scottish oil wells in the North Sea others are involved in the support of the oil companies. Taxes extracted from the oil companies however do not come to Scotland but to a special pocket established to pay off the debts generated by years of bad financial decisions made by successive Governments in London.
In fact it was recently revealed that Scotland is the only country in the world to find oil and end up poorer.
Even though 90% of the UK oil was based in Scottish Waters the money was used to pay for major developments in the South of England where the general population of the country is larger so had a greater voting power. Politicians use their power to buy votes where it matters to them.
Lets have a look at some videos made by Scots examining the effects of oil on the country or lack of it.
There is more on Scottish Oil here as well. This one looks at the power of Scottish oil to support our country when OPEC tried to increase the price of Arab oil which cost other countries massive amounts of money. But none of thie savings on oil taxes came back to Scotland.
So far we have seen some of the ways that our Scottish Oil has generated billions of pounds for the United Kingdom but very little of this oil money has been spent to regenerate Scotland. Indeed Aberdeen city gets less financial support then any comparable region of the UK.
For more information about the problems of Scotland and Scottish oil by going here Scottish Oil 2
