Declassified files reveal British interest in Falkland Islands oil
Ministers keen to claim UK right to potential deposits before and after 1982 war with Argentina
Grace Livingstone
Tue 14 Jun 2022 02.00 EDT
British ministers were keen to exploit oil around the Falkland Islands before and after the 1982 conflict, declassified British government documents show. In a previously unpublished letter, the former chancellor Norman Lamont said the revenues from Falklands oil should go to the British government, not the Falkland islanders.
“I have no doubt that in the event of a major oil find, tax revenues should accrue to the UK exchequer. That seems to me only equitable given the very substantial financial as well as other sacrifices that the UK has made … to secure the freedom of the Falkland Islands,” Lamont wrote to the then foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, on 21 October 1991.
Lamont added: “We would not want to give credence to the accusation that our Falkland Islands operation was motivated by a belief that there was oil to be found in Falklands waters, which would be quite untrue.”
Nevertheless, he and other cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, John Major, and Hurd, agreed that Britain should get the bulk of any oil revenues, approving a 1991 overseas and defence policy cabinet committee paper that stated: “If oil were to be found in commercially recoverable quantities, HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] … should take such measures as are necessary to ensure that HMG can secure access to a substantial share of the concomitant revenues.”
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/14/declassified-files-reveal-british-interest-in-falkland-islands-oil
