SNP pledge to end oil testing controls

The SNP has pledged an independent Scotland would tear up any MoD restrictions on oil and gas exploration in the country’s seas.

Last week The Sunday Post revealed how a potential oil boom off the west coast of Scotland was blocked by Westminster defence chiefs.

Declassified UK Government papers from the 1980s showed how the Ministry of Defence was prepared to “pull out all the stops” to prevent any North Sea-style bonanza in the Firth of Clyde.

And now Alex Salmond has said any no-go areas or restrictions on exploration put in by the UK Government will be lifted if voters back a Yes vote.

The move comes as business leaders in Ayrshire called for a campaign to revisit exploration plans for the Firth of Clyde.

A source close to the First Minister said: “In an independent Scotland there will be no no-go areas for oil exploration on the Atlantic shelf or anywhere else.

“The waters off the west coast of Scotland are potentially rich in oil and gas resources and we will make sure we do everything we can to maximise the returns from the industry.

“We have seen in just the last few days, with the announcement of the massive new £4 billion oil field investment off Shetland which stands to support up to 20,000 jobs, just how valuable these new oil discoveries around Scotland are.

“Any no-go areas or restrictions by the MoD will be lifted in an independent Scotland, given the vast potential of these waters.”

Letters between the Department for Energy and MoD from the 1980s show defence chiefs asked for no drilling rigs to be installed in the Firth of Clyde.

The MoD’s “blanket refusal” to allow test drilling effectively ruled out establishing the full scale of any reserves off the Ayrshire coast.

The proposed removal of nuclear submarines from Faslane in the event of a Yes vote would pave the way for restrictions on the Firth of Clyde to be lifted.

However, it is thought there could be other parts of Scotland’s seas subject to restrictions by defence chiefs and these would also be lifted according to SNP minsters.

Norman Geddes, chairman of the Elite Ayrshire Business Circle, which counts hundreds of firms in the region as members, said: “There has to be a review of this in light of the what we now know went on in the Firth of Clyde. We would wholeheartedly support any move to get exploration work started again.

“I remember all of this from the early 1980s and we were looking at what was happening in Aberdeen and thinking even just a little bit of this would be fantastic for Ayrshire. The infrastructure is all there.”

Last week Labour MP Tom Greatrex asked the MoD what representations it had made to the then Department of Energy on oil exploration in the Firth of Clyde in the 1980s and what records it holds on the issue.

In a written answer, Mark Francois MP, Minister of State for Defence Personnel, failed to answer the first question but added: “The department does not hold any information relating to oil explorations in the Firth of Clyde.”

The files obtained by The Sunday Post clearly show dialogue between the two Government departments in the early 1980s but the MoD last week refused to comment on our revelations.