NATIONALISTS have reacted angrily to the publication of documents from the 1970s detailing government proposals to prevent Scotland laying claim to North Sea oil in the event of independence.
The plans, by civil servants in Whitehall, included suggestions that Labour ministers delay a referendum on devolution in Scotland.
Documents also revealed proposals for the redrawing of the boundaries of Scotland's coastal waters and the creation of a British sector of the North Sea, ascribing oil and gas revenues to the UK as a whole - a move which was adopted.
Plans for an independence campaign for the Shetland and Orkney Islands, which produced over half of Scotland's oil reserves, were also put forward.
A paper written in 1975 by Sir David Walker, the then assistant secretary at the Treasury, stated that "progress toward devolution should be delayed for as long as possible consistently with honouring the government commitment to move down the devolution road and containing the SNP lobby in parliament".
It also reveals details of a letter by then energy minister, Tony Benn, to the deputy Labour leader, Ted Short, in which he said that energy policy "should be a function reserved to the UK government".
Benn said he had favoured Scottish devolution and had not believed that independence would lead to the loss of North Sea oil.
The first minister, Alex Salmond, said: "These papers are proof positive of the bad faith of successive UK governments - Labour and Tory - in depriving Scotland of access to our own North Sea resources for nakedly political reasons.
"Official figures showed that an independent Scotland would move up the EU league table from 10th to third in wealth per head with North Sea oil and gas resources included in Scotland's accounts. This is the reality that the London-based parties have been desperate to suppress for decades, but the truth will out."
But Michael Connarty, Labour MP for Linlithgow and Falkirk East, said the views expressed in the documents did not reflect those of the party.
"As the party that fought for and delivered the Scottish parliament, it is interesting to hear of reports.
"They appear to be the individual views of civil servants ruminating on putative public policies, but are clearly not views shared by Labour," he added.
"There is a Scottish parliament, delivered by Labour, and Orkney and Shetland remain integral parts of Scotland."
SNP Treasury spokesman Stewart Hosie said: "The UK government has conspired to keep Scotland from her oil wealth and her independence for over 30 years. These new revelations of plots and plans to change the border, delay devolution and manipulate the position of Shetland and Orkney expose the lengths to which successive UK governments have gone.
"There is now a long list of deceitful steps taken by the Labour and Tory governments that have deprived the Scottish people of years of future wealth," he added.
Murdo Fraser, the deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said: "Only a political anorak would get excited about the contents of a 30-year-old historical document."
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