Today's Sunday Herald
carries a story about a newly unearthed government file on North Sea Oil.
Written by former chief economist Professor Gavin McCrone in 1976, it sets out the case for an oil fund.
The plan had a clear political dimension - to suppress support for independence - but there was also a genuine desire to invest in depressed areas of the country such as West Central Scotland.
The then Labour Scottish Secretary Bruce Millan and Energy Secretary Tony Benn argued for it in cabinet, but the economic crisis in the late 1970s was so acute, the government rejected it, spending the oil revenues and saving nothing.
McCrone now reckons Callaghan's government had little choice given the circumstances.
But the Tory goverments of the 1980s... well, they had a golden opportunity to set up an oil fund when the revenues were "colossal", but they didn't take it.
Regular readers will now how much I moan about government secrecy.
So here, after 38 years, and for the first time, is the McCrone 2 report of July 1976 in full.
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| Page 8 |
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| Page 9 - final page |
A government report typewritten and only 9 pages. Disproof for the economist who said "you can see the computer revolution everywhere but in the productivity statistics". Productivity has improved so much that a modern version would be the equivalent of 200 pages.
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