THE SNP Government's plan for an oil fund in an independent Scotland is a "complete con", Ed Davey has insisted.
The claim came as the Energy Secretary visits Scotland today to promote the UK Government's renewable energy plans and announce an additional £50 million to clean up nuclear waste at Dounreay in Caithness.
Last month, John Swinney made clear the Scottish Government could set up a Norwegian-style oil fund from "the point of independence" and secure an "economic bonus", which could be delivered only by breaking away from the UK.
The Scottish Finance Secretary noted that Norway's oil fund, which began in the mid-1990s "with only modest payments", was now the world's largest sovereign wealth fund worth more than £500 billion.
But Mr Davey dismissed the Nationalist proposal. The London Liberal Democrat MP said: "If they want to put money aside for this, that money has to come from current revenue, which otherwise would have to be spent on schools, hospitals, pensions, police.
"There's not some sort of magic money that's going somewhere, which they can suddenly draw down.
"What is more disingenuous is they don't explain that in an independent Scotland the revenue from the North Sea oil and gas would be a much higher proportion of their income. In the UK, it's about one or two per cent, in Scotland it's 14 or 15 per cent; so a much greater proportion of total revenue."
Mr Davey is talking to students at Strathclyde University in Glasgow today about the Coalition's green energy plans to create 250,000 jobs by 2020. He is also announcing that the Isle of Mull's £1.3m Garmony hydro scheme will go ahead as it is eligible for aid under the Government's Feed-in-Tariff's scheme.
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