Exclusive:
By a Scottish Energy News reporter
The latest survey of Scottish public opinion shows that 2 out of every 3 Scots believe that new powers pledged by the leaders of the three main UK political parties to be devolved to Holyrood from the UK parliament should include ‘control of oil and gas tax revenues generated in Scottish waters’.
A total of 68% of Scots people want the Scottish Parliament and, thereby, the Scottish Government, to have control of N. Sea tax revenues.
It is interesting to note that the survey was carried out just 10 days after the result of Scotland’s Independence referendum resulted in a ‘no’ vote to full separation from the UK – and barely afortnight after the famous ‘vow’ for more powers for Scotland jointly declared by the UK Prime Minister and leaders of the Labour and LibDem parties as printed in a Glasgow-based tabloid newspaper
Only one-fifth (21%) of Scots think that the UK Chancellor (George Osborne) should continue to have these powers; 11% said they did not know.
A total of 1,049 people were questioned by Panelbase – and independent polling company. Although the report was commissioned by the SNP, the party has no influence over the survey results.
Even when broken down by voters’ party allegiance for the last general election to Holyrood, there is a near-total cross-party majority of Scots who want the Scottish Parliament to set and collect N. Sea oil and gas taxes.
Also of note (as show in the table below) that a clear majority of Labour and Lib-Dem supporters want oil and gas tax powers to be devolved to Holyrood – as do almost half (49%) of Scottish Conservatives.
%-age of Scottish political party voters who want Holyrood to control N. Sea oil and gas tax revenues
- Scottish Conservatives 49%
- Labour 62%
- Scottish Liberal Democrats 60%
- SNP 83%
- Scottish Greens 74%
See also:
Energy and Scotland’s Independence referendum: Now we know the vote, but when will we know the result? – asks IAN MARCHANT, President of the UK Energy Institute
Read the full article – EXCLUSIVE – only on the POLICY PLATFORM page in Scottish Energy News at : http://goo.gl/NdfxrT
See also:
Industry must invest in new technologies to unlock even more N. Sea oil reserves : By Professor Mehran Sohrabi, Director of the Centre for Enhanced Oil Recovery within the Institute of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University.
Read the full article only on the BUSINESS PLATFORM page in Scottish Energy News at:
http://goo.gl/PhzVkY
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