Alex Salmond has claimed he could finance the running of a separate Scotland through a rise in oil prices.
Speaking to a radio station, during his trip to America, he talked of an “oil splurge” in coming years for the North Sea. However, industry experts have warned that forecasting oil prices several years in advance is “highly uncertain”. In the past 12 months alone, the price has varied between $92 and $112 a barrel.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson MSP said:
“We all know Alex Salmond is a gambler, now it seems he is prepared to make his biggest bet yet on one of the most volatile and finite energy resources in the world.
To base the future prosperity of a separate Scotland on the fluctuating price of oil is risky in the extreme. To put his back-of-the-fag packet sums into perspective, billions of pounds more has been spent on welfare and pensions in Scotland than that raised by oil and gas revenues in each of the past ten years.
This is yet another dangerous assertion from a First Minister when people are demanding hard facts on the biggest decision Scotland has faced in 300 years.”
